"A Psychedelic Gravity Map of the Moon’s Surface" Topic
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Tango01 | 26 Jun 2014 12:49 p.m. PST |
"If your eyes had the ability to see gravity, this is the view you'd get while flying over the moon. The beautiful image above shows the most detailed gravity field map ever created for any body in the solar system, including the Earth. The map was made with data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which flew two twin probes around the moon in 2012. The washing machine-sized spacecraft orbited close together, one chasing the other. Each probe's orbital path was determined entirely by the lunar gravity field below them. A hypothetical perfectly smooth, homogeneous planet would have a perfectly spherical gravity field. But in reality, all planets and moons in the solar system have irregularities. Interior variations in density and features on the surface such as mountains, craters, and volcanic plains create deviations from this perfect sphere. As the two GRAIL spacecraft flew, they constantly measured the distance separating the pair. They were able to track differences in separation as small as a few microns, roughly the size of a human blood cell
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Full article here link Amicalement Armand |
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