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Nasa will launch a pair of probes on Thursday that will examine the interior structure of the moon and shed light on the formation of the rocky planets of the solar system.
Part of the agency's Discovery Program, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) mission consists of two satellites that will spend almost four months on a journey to the Earth's companion. Once they arrive – a day apart at the moon's south pole – they will take measurements for a further three months before being directed to smash into the lunar surface.
The Grail mission will measure the moon's gravitational field in an attempt to reconstruct the history of how and when different parts of it cooled and solidified. While the shifting geology of the Earth continually erases memories of its origin through the movement of tectonic plates, the moon's surface and interior has kept a near-perfect record of the 4.5bn-year history of our solar system.
Though there have been a number of probes and astronauts sent to the moon, the missing piece of the puzzle has been the study of its interior.
"I like to use the analogy of the moon being Earth's closest family member," said Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If you think about the people that you know and love it is not what they look like but what they are like on the inside that makes them special. We will not really understand the history of the moon until we know what the moon is like on the inside."
www.theguardian.com
Part of the agency's Discovery Program, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) mission consists of two satellites that will spend almost four months on a journey to the Earth's companion. Once they arrive – a day apart at the moon's south pole – they will take measurements for a further three months before being directed to smash into the lunar surface.
The Grail mission will measure the moon's gravitational field in an attempt to reconstruct the history of how and when different parts of it cooled and solidified. While the shifting geology of the Earth continually erases memories of its origin through the movement of tectonic plates, the moon's surface and interior has kept a near-perfect record of the 4.5bn-year history of our solar system.
Though there have been a number of probes and astronauts sent to the moon, the missing piece of the puzzle has been the study of its interior.
"I like to use the analogy of the moon being Earth's closest family member," said Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If you think about the people that you know and love it is not what they look like but what they are like on the inside that makes them special. We will not really understand the history of the moon until we know what the moon is like on the inside."
Grail lunar probes will use gravity to map the inside of the moon
Precise measurements of the distance between the two probes will allow scientists to infer the moon's interior structure
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