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NASA spacecraft to probe the inside of the moon
Source: Agencies |
September 8, 2011, Thursday
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MORE than 100 spacecraft have been to the moon, including six with US astronauts, but one key piece of information about Earth's natural satellite is still missing -- what's inside.
Learning about the interior of the moon is the primary goal of a new NASA mission called Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, which is scheduled to launch today at 8:37 am (local time) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Aboard the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket are two identical satellites designed to reveal dips and swells in the moon's gravity field, which will give scientists insight into the moon's core.
Overall, the moon has about one-sixth the gravity of Earth, but it is not evenly distributed. On the moon, a mountain actually might be a molehill, gravitationally speaking.
"Sometimes you'll see a big mountain and you'd expect a high gravity signal but in reality you get no (extra) gravity signal," said Sami Asmar, GRAIL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Learning about the interior of the moon is the primary goal of a new NASA mission called Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, which is scheduled to launch today at 8:37 am (local time) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Aboard the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket are two identical satellites designed to reveal dips and swells in the moon's gravity field, which will give scientists insight into the moon's core.
Overall, the moon has about one-sixth the gravity of Earth, but it is not evenly distributed. On the moon, a mountain actually might be a molehill, gravitationally speaking.
"Sometimes you'll see a big mountain and you'd expect a high gravity signal but in reality you get no (extra) gravity signal," said Sami Asmar, GRAIL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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