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South pole of the far side of the moon as seen from the GRAIL mission’s Ebb spacecraft. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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A
camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior
Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view
of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by
Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select
lunar images for study.
GRAIL
consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each
of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a
test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan. 19. The GRAIL project plans to test the
MoonKAM aboard Flow at a later date.
In
the video, the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the
screen as the spacecraft flies toward the lunar south pole. One of the
first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of the moon
is the Mare Orientale, a 900-km-wide (560-mile) impact basin that
straddles both the moon's near and far side.
The
clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To
the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 149-km-wide
(93-mile) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in
the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of
years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.
"The
quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM
students as they prepare to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL
principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge.
The
twin spacecraft successfully achieved lunar orbit this past New Year's
Eve and New Year's Day. Previously named GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, the
washing machine-sized spacecraft received their new names from fourth
graders at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont.,
following a nationwide student naming contest.
Thousands
of fourth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the
lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations
Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the
satellites for students to study. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally
Ride, America's first woman in space. Her team at Sally Ride Science and
undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego
will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and
lunar exploration. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying
instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach.
"We
have had great response from schools around the country; more than
2,500 signed up to participate so far," Ride said. "In mid-March, the
first pictures of the moon will be taken by students using MoonKAM. I
expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science
and engineering."
Launched
in September 2011, Ebb and Flow periodically perform trajectory
correction maneuvers that, over time, will lower their orbits to
near-circular ones with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).
During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions
about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth
and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL
mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL
mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in
Denver built the spacecraft.
GRAIL
MoonKAM
SOURCE
