More on the Moon: NASA's GRAIL Mission

Maybe you think that we know enough by now about the Moon and should focus on greater things that are still a mystery in our universe but there is much more to understand about Earth's massive natural satellite.  Being the biggest moon, relative to the size of its planet, this orbiting wonder is quite magnificent and needs to be studied more.

I find this mission personally interesting considering that the spacecrafts will attempt to understand the Moon's gravitational field and I have always found the force of gravity to be quite intriguing.

The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission was designed to study the moon outside AND inside.  The GRAIL Mission consists of two spacecraft, initially named GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, that will orbit the Moon to measure the gravitational field all around, including the side facing away from Earth.  From this information, scientists hope to better understand the structure and thermodynamics of the Moon.  The data gathered from this mission will also be applied to learning more about the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars).  The spacecrafts will work together using the same instruments to obtain this data.

Below is a picture illustrating the mission at the moon:

(Picture from http://moon.mit.edu/overview.html)

Each spacecraft is about 440 pounds and have a Lunar Gravity Ranging System (LGRS) attached to it.  This device consists of four sub instruments that are used to measure the position of each spacecraft relative to the moon and one another and also transmits this data back to Earth. 

This mission was launched not just to learn more about the moon but also to get the public involved as well.  Each spacecraft is equipped with a few cameras for educational purposes only.  Schools and students can sign up to study the spacecrafts movement and also get pictures taken from the the spacecrafts.

The GRAIL Mission is just one of many missions made to study more about our own solar system.  There are also many other missions launched to learn more about the universe.  All of these missions are important to better understand this huge space that we humans occupy and how it came to be.  I hope that missions like the GRAIL Mission will forever continue to help answer our curious questions.

This is merely a summary of this great venture.  For more information on the GRAIL Mission click on the following links and enjoy:  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/overview/index.html, http://moon.mit.edu/overview.html