Jump to content

File:PIA18821-LunarGrailMission-OceanusProcellarum-Rifts-Closeup-20141001.jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (1,546 × 905 pixels, file size: 150 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Ehimo

Summary

Description
English: October 1, 2014

On the West Coast of the Ocean of Storms (Artist's Concept)

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/grail/pia18821

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-mission-points-to-origin-of-ocean-of-storms-on-earth-s-moon

A view of Earth's moon looking south across Oceanus Procellarum, representing how the western border structures may have looked while active. The gravity anomalies along the border structures are interpreted as ancient, solidified, lava-flooded rifts that are now buried beneath the surface of the dark volcanic plains, or maria, on the near side of the moon.

This artist's concept combines gravity gradients from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, an image mosaic from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's (LRO) Wide Angle Camera, and topography data from LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter.

Launched as GRAIL A and GRAIL B in September 2011, the probes, renamed Ebb and Flow, operated in a nearly circular orbit near the poles of the moon at an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers) until their mission ended in December 2012. The distance between the twin probes changed slightly as they flew over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features, such as mountains and craters, and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface.

The twin spacecraft flew in a nearly circular orbit until the end of the mission on Dec. 17, 2012, when the probes intentionally were sent into the moon's surface. NASA later named the impact site in honor of late astronaut Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the GRAIL mission team.

GRAIL's prime and extended science missions generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.

The GRAIL mission was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. GRAIL was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver.

For more information about GRAIL, please visit http://grail.nasa.gov.
Date
Source http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/grail20141001.jpg
Author NASA/Colorado School of Mines/MIT/JPL/GSFC

Licensing

Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
Warnings:

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

1 September 2014

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current12:12, 4 October 2014Thumbnail for version as of 12:12, 4 October 20141,546 × 905 (150 KB)DrbogdanUser created page with UploadWizard

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata