The Atlantic

What Is 13,000 Feet Tall, Millions of Years Old, and Spews Out Ice?

Scientists are searching for a mysterious kind of volcano on the dwarf planet Ceres.
Source: Mike Segar / Reuters

Ice volcanoes sound like something out of a Syfy-channel movie, perhaps produced by the same people behind the Sharknado franchise: a muddy mix of ice, rock, and salts erupting through cracks in the terrain and scattering out onto the landscape, freezing everything in its path. But they are in fact a natural phenomenon that scientists believe occurs across our solar system and beyond.

For several years now, scientists have been puzzling over one such volcano on

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