On Sept. 10, 2011, NASA's GRAIL spacecraft launched on a mission to the moon! GRAIL, which stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, was sent to the moon to map its gravitational fields.
Scientists could study the moon's interior structure by looking at maps of the moon's gravity. Asteroid impacts from billions of years ago left dense pockets of material under the lunar surface, which can exert extra gravitational pull on spacecraft orbiting the moon. So by measuring that gravitational pull, the GRAIL mission could reveal information about what lies beneath the surface.
The mission actually consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow, which would fly in tandem around the moon to map variations in its gravitation field. Both lifted off on the same Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida and arrived in lunar orbit almost four months later. They mapped the moon for about nine months before NASA decided it was finished with the mission, and the two orbiters crashed into the moon.
Scientists could study the moon's interior structure by looking at maps of the moon's gravity. Asteroid impacts from billions of years ago left dense pockets of material under the lunar surface, which can exert extra gravitational pull on spacecraft orbiting the moon. So by measuring that gravitational pull, the GRAIL mission could reveal information about what lies beneath the surface.
The mission actually consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow, which would fly in tandem around the moon to map variations in its gravitation field. Both lifted off on the same Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida and arrived in lunar orbit almost four months later. They mapped the moon for about nine months before NASA decided it was finished with the mission, and the two orbiters crashed into the moon.
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TechTranscript
00:00On this day in space.
00:04In 2011, NASA's GRAIL spacecraft launched on a mission to the moon.
00:08GRAIL, which stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory,
00:12was sent to the moon to map its gravitational fields.
00:16Scientists could study the moon's interior structure by looking at maps of the moon's gravity.
00:20Asteroid impacts from billions of years ago left dense pockets of material under the lunar surface,
00:24which can exert extra gravitational pull on spacecraft orbiting the moon.
00:28So by measuring that gravitational pull, the GRAIL mission could reveal information about what lies beneath the surface.
00:32The mission actually consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow,
00:36which would fly in tandem around the moon to map its variations in the gravitational field.
00:40Both lifted off from the same Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
00:44and arrived in lunar orbit almost four months later.
00:48They mapped the moon for about nine months before NASA decided it was finished with the mission
00:52and the two orbiters crashed into the moon.
00:56That's a look at what's happening on this day in space.
01:00Music.