NASA's GRAIL lunar orbiters produce most detailed gravity map of the Moon
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An artist's depiction of the twin spacecraft that comprise NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT)
An artist's depiction of the twin spacecraft that comprise NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT)
Artist’s concept of NASA’s GRAIL mission (Image: NASA/JPL)
Mercator projection of lunar gravity map (Image: NASA/ARC/MIT)
Variations in the lunar gravity field as measured by NASA's GRAIL mission (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT/GSFC)
A 300-mile-long (500 kilometer-long) linear gravity anomaly on the far side of the Moon revealed by NASA's GRAIL mission with GRAIL data on the left and topography data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on the right (image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM)
A profile across one of the linear gravity anomalies found by NASA's GRAIL mission and a terrestrial dike formation 50 times shorter and 1,000 times narrower than the one on the Moon (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM, Louis Maher)
Map of lunar dikes mapped by NASA's GRAIL mission (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM)
Map of lunar gravity gradients calculated by NASA's GRAIL mission (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM)
Porosity of the lunar highlands derived from NASA’s GRAIL mission and samples from the Apollo missions (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ IPGP)
Thickness of the Moon’s crust mapped by NASA's GRAIL mission and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ IPGP)
Mercator projection of lunar gravity map (Image: NASA/ARC/MIT)
Article Summary
Data from NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes has been used to create the highest resolution gravity map yet of any body in the Solar System. The two washing machine-sized spacecraft acted as a 225-kilometer (140 mi) long gravity detector for studying the interior composition of the Moon.
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