Vesta’s Eastern Hemisphere Floats in Space in 3-D. This anaglyph shows the varied topography of Vesta’s eastern hemisphere from craters in the north, the equatorial troughs and the huge mountain at the Souh Pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
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The giant Asteroid Vesta literally floats in space in a new high resolution 3-D image of the battered bodies Eastern Hemisphere taken by NASA’s Dawn Asteroid Orbiter.
Haul out your red-cyan 3-D anaglyph glasses and lets go whirling around Vesta and sledding down mountains to greet the alien Snowman! The sights are fabulous !
The Dawn imaging group based at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Berlin, Germany and led by team member Ralf Jaumann has released a trio of new high resolution 3-D images that are the most vivid anaglyphs yet published by the international science team.
The lead anaglyph shows the highly varied topography of the Eastern Hemisphere of Vesta and was taken during the final approach phase as Dawn was about 5,200 kilometers (3,200 miles) away and preparing to achieve orbit in July 2011.
The heavily cratered northern region is at top and is only partially illuminated because of Vesta’s tilted angle to the Sun at that time of year. Younger craters are overlain onto many older and more degraded craters. The equatorial region is dominated by the mysterious troughs which encircle most of Vesta and may have formed as a result of a gargantuan gong, eons ago.
The southern hemisphere exhibits fewer craters than in the northern hemisphere. Look closely at the bottom left and you’ll see the huge central mountain complex of the Rheasilvia impact basin visibly protruding out from Vesta’s south polar region.
This next 3-D image shows a close-up of the South Pole Mountain at the center of the Rheasilvia Impact basin otherwise known as the “Mount Everest of Vesta”.
The Mount Everest of Vesta in 3-D
This anaglyph shows the central complex and huge mountain in Vesta’s Rheasilvia impact basin at the South Pole. Does water ice lurk beneath the South Pole ?
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
The central complex is approximately 200 kilometers (120 miles) in diameter and is approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) tall and is therefore about two and a half times taller than Earth’s Mount Everest!
Be sure to take a long look inside the deep craters and hummocky terrain surrounding “Mount Everest”.
A recent study concludes that, in theory, Vesta’s interior is cold enough for water ice to lurk beneath the North and South poles.
Finally lets gaze at the trio of craters that make up the “Snowman” in the 3-D image snapped in August 2011 as Dawn was orbiting at about 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) altitude. The three craters are named Minucia, Marcia and Calpurnia from top to bottom. Their diameters respectively are; 24 kilometers (15 miles), 53 kilometers (33 miles) and 63 kilometers (40 miles).
3-D image of Vesta’s “Snowman” craters
The three craters are named Minucia, Marcia and Calpurnia from top to bottom. They are 24 kilometers (15 miles), 53 kilometers (33 miles) and 63 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, respectively. Image resolution is about 250 meters (820 feet) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
It is likely that Marcia and Calpurnia formed from the impact of a binary asteroid and that Minucia formed in a later impact. The smooth region around the craters is the ejecta blanket.
Dawn Orbiting Vesta above the “Snowman” craters
This artist's concept shows NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbiting the giant asteroid Vesta above the Snowman craters. The depiction of Vesta is based on images obtained by Dawn's framing cameras. Dawn is an international collaboration of the US, Germany and Italy. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Vesta is the second most massive asteroid in the main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is 330 miles (530 km) in diameter.
Dawn is the first spacecraft from Earth to visit Vesta. It achieved orbit in July 2011 for a year long mission. Dawn will fire up its ion propulsion thrusters in July 2012 to spiral out of orbit and sail to Ceres, the biggest asteroid of them all !
Vesta and Ceres are also considered to be protoplanets.
Viewing the South Pole of Vesta and Rhea Silvia Impact Basin. This image obtained by Dawn’s framing camera shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta and the circular Rheasilvia impact basin which scientists believe originated by a collision with another asteroid early in the asteroid's history. The image was recorded from a distance of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The image resolution is about 260 meters per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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The mysterious asteroid Vesta may well have more surprises in store. Despite past observations that Vesta would be nearly bone dry, newly published research indicates that about half of the giant asteroid is sufficiently cold and dark enough that water ice could theoretically exist below the battered surface.
Scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland have derived the first models of Vesta’s average global temperatures and illumination by the Sun based on data obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope.
“Near the north and south poles, the conditions appear to be favorable for water ice to exist beneath the surface,” says Timothy Stubbs of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The research by Timothy Stubbs and Yongli Wang, of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute at the University of Maryland, was published in the January 2012 issue of the journal Icarus.
If any water lurks beneath Vesta, it would most likely exist at least 10 feet (3 meters) below the North and South poles because the models predict that the poles are the coldest regions on the giant asteroid and the equatorial regions are too warm. Global Map of Average Surface Temperature of Vesta
This global map of average surface temperature shows the warmer equatorial zone of the giant asteroid Vesta is likely too warm to sustain water ice below the surface. But roughly half of Vesta is so cold and receives so little sunlight on average that water ice could have survived there for billions of years. The dividing lines (solid gray) are found at about 27 degrees north latitude and 27 degrees south latitude. This map, with temperatures given in kelvins, comes from the first published models of the average global temperature and illumination conditions on Vesta. Credit: NASA/GSFC/UMBC
If proven, the existence of water ice at Vesta would have vast implications for the formation and evolution of the tiny body and upend current theories.
The surface of Vesta is not cold enough for ice to survive all the time because unlike the Moon, it probably does not have any significant permanently shadowed craters where water ice could stay frozen on the surface indefinitely.
Even the huge 300 mile diameter (480-kilometer) crater at the South Pole is not a good candidate for water ice because Vesta is tilted 27 degrees on its axis, a bit more than Earth’s tilt of 23 degrees.
By contrast, the Moon is only tilted 1.5 degrees and possesses many permanently shadowed craters. NASA’s LCROSS impact mission proved that water ice exists inside permanently shadowed lunar craters.
New modeling shows that, under present conditions, Vesta's polar regions are cold enough (less than about 145 kelvins) to sustain water ice for billions of years, as this map of average surface temperature around the asteroid's south pole indicates.
The models predict that the average annual temperature around Vesta’s poles is below minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit (145 kelvins). Water ice is not stable above that temperature in the top 10 feet of Vestan soil, or regolith.
At the equator and in a band stretching to about 27 degrees north and south in latitude, the average annual temperature is about minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit (145 kelvins), which is too high for the ice to survive.
“On average, it’s colder at Vesta’s poles than near its equator, so in that sense, they are good places to sustain water ice,” says Stubbs in a NASA statement. “But they also see sunlight for long periods of time during the summer seasons, which isn’t so good for sustaining ice. So if water ice exists in those regions, it may be buried beneath a relatively deep layer of dry regolith.”
Vesta is the second most massive asteroid in the main Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
NASA’s Dawn Asteroid Orbiter is the very first mission to Vesta and achieved orbit in July 2011 for a 1 year long mission.
Dawn is currently circling Vesta at its lowest planned orbit. The three science instruments are snapping pictures and the spectrometers are collecting data on the elemental and mineralogical composition of Vesta.
The onboard GRaND spectrometer in particular could shed light on the question of whether water ice exists at Vesta.
So far no water has been detected, but the best data is yet to come.
In July 2012, Dawn fires up its ion thrusters and spirals out of orbit to begin the journey to Ceres, the largest asteroid of them all.
Ceres is believed to harbor huge caches of water, either as ice or in the form of oceans and is a potential habitat for life.
Martian Vista from Opportunity at Endeavour Crater - 8 Years on Mars. NASA’s Opportunity rover celebrated 8 Years on Mars on January 24, 2012. This mosaic shows portions of the segmented rim of Endeavour crater (14 miles, 22 km wide) after the robot arriving at the craters foothills in August 2011. Large ejecta blocks from a smaller nearby crater are visible in the middle. At Endeavour, Opportunity will investigate the oldest minerals deposits she has ever visited from billions of years ago and which may hold clues to environments that were potentially habitable for microbial life. The rover will eventually drive to Cape Tribulation at right after surviving her 5th winter on Mars. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
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Today, the resilient Opportunity robot begins her 9th year roving around beautifully Earth-like Martian terrain where potentially life sustaining liquid water once flowed billions of years ago.
Opportunity celebrates her 8th anniversary on the Red Planet gazing at the foothills of the vast crater named Endeavour, promising a “mother lode” of “watery” science – an unimaginable circumstance since the nail biting landing on the hematite rich plains of Meridiani Planum on 24 January 2004.
“Opportunity is 97 months into the 3 month mission,” team members are proud and universally surprised to say.
“Milestones like 8 years on Mars always make me look forward rather than looking back,” Rover Principal Investigator Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell University told Universe Today for this article commemorating Opportunity’s landing.
“We’ve still got a lot of exploring to do, but we’re doing it with a vehicle that was designed for a 90-sol mission. That means that every sol is a gift at this point.”
Opportunity has driven more than 21 miles (34 kilometers) across the Red Planet’s surface during what is truly humankind’s first overland expedition on another Planet. See our route map below.
Opportunity Rover Traverse Map at Meridiani Planum on Mars - 2004 to 2012
Traverse map shows the 8 Year Journey of Opportunity from Eagle Crater landing site on Sol 1- Jan. 24, 2004 - to 5th Winter Haven worksite at Greeley Haven at Endeavour Crater rim in January 2012. Opportunity embarked on a crater tour and discovered bountiful evidence for the flow of liquid water on Mars billions of years ago. The robot has shown that ancient ephemeral shallow lakes existed on Mars when the cratered terrain was cut by fluvial channels. Endeavour Crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Opportunity has so far driven more than 21 miles (34 km) over 8 Years but was only expected to live for 90 Martian days. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/UA/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
NASA’s twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity blasted off for Mars atop a pair of Delta II rockets in the summer of 2003 with a mission “warranty” of just 90 Martian days, or Sols.
Today is Sol 2846 of working operations for Opportunity, compared to an anticipated lifetime of only 90 Sols – that amounts to more than 31 times beyond the designer’s expectations.
Indeed, the long lived robot is now enduring her 5th Winter on Mars. And to glimpse the next Martian sunrise, the robo girls manmade components must survive the harsh extremes of frigid Antarctic-like temperatures each and every sol.
“I never thought that we would still be planning sequences for Opportunity today,” Ray Arvidson told Universe Today. Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, is the deputy rover principal investigator.
“I seriously thought both Spirit and Opportunity would be finished by the summer of 2004.”
Opportunity's Eighth Anniversary View From 'Greeley Haven' (False Color). This mosaic of images taken in mid-January 2012 shows the windswept vista northward (left) to northeastward (right) from the location where Opportunity is spending its fifth Martian winter, an outcrop informally named "Greeley Haven. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.
But, Opportunity is the gift to science that keeps on giving.
“I am feeling pretty good as the MER rover anniversaries approach,” Arvidson told me.
“Opportunity has shown that ancient ephemeral shallow lakes existed as Mars moved climatically from an early period when the cratered terrain was cut by fluvial channels to the current dry and cold conditions that dominate.”
“Both rovers have conclusively shown the need for lateral mobility to get to relevant outcrops and back out the secrets associated with past conditions,” Arvidson explained.
Barely a month ago the bountiful harvest from mobility was once again demonstrated when the science team lead by Squyres and Arvidson announced that Opportunity had discovered the most scientifically compelling evidence yet for the flow of liquid water on ancient Mars.
Squyres and Arvidson announced that Opportunity had found a bright vein – named “Homestake” – composed of the mineral gypsum located at the Cape York segment of Endeavour Crater where the intrepid robot is currently spending her 5th Martian Winter.
“This gypsum vein is the single most powerful piece of evidence for liquid water at Mars that has been discovered by the Opportunity rover,” Squyres explained.
Veins are a geologic indication of the past flow of liquid water.
See our mosaic below illustrating the exact location of the “Homestake” vein at Endeavour Crater – also published at Astronomy Picture of the Day; 12 Dec 2011.
Opportunity discovers Water related Mineral Vein at Endeavour Crater - November 2011
Opportunity rover discovered Gypsum at the Homestake mineral vein, while exploring around the base of Cape York ridge at the rim of Endeavour Crater. The vein is composed of calcium sulfate and indicates the ancient flow of liquid water at this spot on Mars. This panoramic mosaic of images was taken on Sol 2761, November 2011, and illustrates the exact spot of the mineral vein discovery.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Kenneth Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
Published on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): 12 Dec 2011
Opportunity just arrived at the rim of the 14 mile (22 kilometer) wide Endeavour Crater in mid-August 2011 following an epic three year trek across treacherous dune fields from her prior investigative target at the ½ mile wide Victoria Crater.
“It’s like a whole new mission since we arrived at Cape York,” says Squyres.
For the next few months of the bitterly cold Martian winter, Opportunity will conduct a vigorous science campaign while remaining mostly stationary at a spot dubbed “Greeley Haven” in honor of Prof. Ronald Greeley, a team member from Arizona State University who recently passed away.
Opportunity Mars Rover at 5th Winter Worksite at Endeavour Crater
This mosaic shows the view of NASA’s Opportunity rover parked at “Greeley Haven” worksite where the robot will spend her 5th Martian Winter. This mosaic of images shows the Winter Haven view from the Cape York Ridge at the western rim of Endeavour Crater looking south along the crater rim. Tire tracks at right. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
At this moment Opportunity is snapping a 360 degree panorama, deploying her robotic arm onto nearby outcrops, collecting microscopic images, making measurements of mineral compositions with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer and conducting radio science observations to elucidate the unknown structure of the Martian interior and core.
The rover is covered with a significant coating of dust which limits her ability to generate power from the life sustaining solar arrays. Since Opportunity is traversing just south of the equator, engineers have temporarily parked her on a northerly facing slope to maximize the electric power generation.
“Opportunity is currently sitting on an outcrop of impact breccias at Greeley Haven on Cape York,” said Arvidson.
Opportunity will remain at Greeley Haven until some time after the Winter Solstice of southern Martian winter occurs at the end of March. 'Greeley Haven' Site for Opportunity's Fifth Martian Winter. This mosaic of Greeley Haven was acquired by Opportunity on Sol 2793, Dec. 2, 2011. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.
Then she’ll head south to further explore the veins and eventually drive to deposits of the clay mineral located a few miles (km) away along the craters rim.
“We’ll do good science while we’re at Greeley Haven. But as soon as we catch a wind gust or the seasons change, we’ll be on our way again,” Squyres told me.
The legendary twins Spirit and Opportunity surely rank as one of the greatest triumphs in space exploration.
Opportunity Mars Rover at Winter Haven Worksite at Endeavour Crater. NASA’s Opportunity rover has parked near this spot at the “Greeley Haven” worksite where the robot will spend her 5th Martian Winter Haven since landing 8 years ago in January 2004. This mosaic of images was snapped in December 2011 and shows the view from the Cape York Ridge at the western rim of Endeavour Crater looking south along the crater rim to a future area that Opportunity will drive to and explore next spring. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
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NASA’s seemingly indestructible Opportunity rover has arrived at the breathtaking location where she’ll be working through her unfathomable 5th Martian Winter. The Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover has not only endured, but flourished for 8 years of unending “Exploration & Discovery” on the Red Planet despite having an expected lifetime at landing of just 3 months, way back in January 2004.
Opportunity is parked at a northward facing outcrop dubbed “Greeley Haven” where she can soak up the sun and juice her innards throughout the utterly harsh and Antarctic-like temperatures on tap for the next few months that threaten to kill her each and every Martian day. See our mosaic above around the Greeley Haven area.
Science team members told Universe Today that the rover is sitting at Greeley Haven because the site offers a roughly 15 degree tilt that will maximize the electric output from the life-giving solar arrays and also allow the robot to carry out a vigorous science campaign during the seasonal Martian winter season that officially begins in March.
Greeley Haven is a located at the northern tip of the “Cape York” segment of the western rim of the vast crater named Endeavour, some 14 miles (22 km) wide that’s loaded with a bountiful variety of rocks and soil that neither Opportunity nor her twin Spirit have ever touched and drilled into before and stem from an earlier epoch when liquid water flowed eons ago and perhaps may have been more favorable to sustaining life.
“Opportunity is currently sitting on Saddleback at Greeley Haven, an outcrop of impact breccias on Cape York, Endeavour crater’s rim,” Ray Arvidson told Universe Today. Arvisdon is the mission’s deputy principal investigator, of Washington University in St. Louis.
“Her northerly tilt is about ~15 degrees which is enough to have a vibrant winter campaign. The Martian southern winter solstice occurs at the end of March. A few months after that date we will drive her off the outcrop and further explore Cape York.”
Approaching 'Greeley Haven' on Endeavour Rim
Opportunity captured this view of a northward-facing outcrop, "Greeley Haven," where the rover will work during its fifth Martian winter. This southward-looking image was taken on Sol 2790 on Mars (Nov. 29, 2011). The rover team chose this designation as a tribute to the influential planetary geologist Ronald Greeley (1939-2011), who was a member of the science team for the Mars rovers and many other interplanetary missions. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Greeley Haven” is named in tribute to planetary Geologist Ronald Greeley (1939-2011) who was a beloved member of the rover science team and a host of other NASA planetary missions. He taught at Arizona State University and inspired several generations of students and planetary scientists until his recent death on Oct. 27, 2011.
“We’ll hunker down at Greeley Haven as long as we need to, and we’ll do good science while we’re there,” Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., told Universe Today. Squyres is the Principal Investigator for Opportunity.
Opportunity is collecting a high resolution 360 degree panorama to commemorate Greeley.
Throughout the past 4 Martian winters, Opportunity had continued to traverse without pause. But this winter time it’s different because the solar panels are significantly more coated with an obscuring layer of dust hindering their energy output.
So the rover is parked with a tilt for her 5th Martian winter, mimicking the successful strategy power boosting used by Spirit to survive 3 harsh Martian winters.
And there is a silver lining to sitting mostly still that enables a chance to determine what’s at the core of the Red Planet, a key fact we don’t know.
“This winter science campaign will feature two way radio tracking with Earth to determine the Martian spin axis dynamics – thus the interior structure, a long-neglected aspect of Mars,” Arvidson told me.
I asked Squyres for a progress update and how long would the data collection require ?
Squyres replied that the experiment has already begun and added – “Hard to say how long. It’s months, as opposed to weeks or years, but it depends very much on data quality and the amount of data we get per week. We’re very early in the experiment now… we’ll just see how it goes.”
Locator Map for 'Greeley Haven' on Endeavour Crater Rim
Opportunity will spend its fifth Martian winter working at Greeley Haven on the western rim of Endeavour Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA
Three Generations of Mars Rovers in the Mars Yard. This grouping shows 3 generations of NASA’s Mars rovers from 1997 to 2012 set inside the Mars Yard at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. The Mars Pathfinder Project (front) landed the first Mars rover - Sojourner - in 1997. The Mars Exploration Rover Project (left) landed Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004. The Mars Science Laboratory Project (right) is on course to land Curiosity on Mars in August 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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NASA Mars rovers have come a long way in terms of size and capability since the rebirth of Red Planet surface exploration just 15 years ago – spanning from 1997 to 2012.
To get a really excellent sense of just how far America’s scientists and engineers have pushed the state of the art in such a short time – when the willpower and funding existed and coincided to explore another world – take a good look at the new pictures here showing 3 generations of NASA’s Mars rovers; namely Mars Pathfinder (MPF), the 1st generation Mars rover, Mars Exploration Rover (MER), the 2nd generation, and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 3rd and newest generation Mars rover.
The newly released pictures graphically display a side by side comparison of the flight spare for Mars Pathfinder (1997 landing) and full scale test rovers of the Mars Exploration Rover (2004 landing) and Mars Science Laboratory (in transit for a 2012 planned landing). The setting is inside the “Mars Yard” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. where the teams conduct mission simulations.
It’s been nothing less than a quantum leap in advancement of the scientific and technological capability from one generation to the next.
Sojourner - NASA’s 1st Mars Rover
Sojourner takes an Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement of Yogi rock after Red Planet landing on July 4, 1997 landing. Sojourner was only 2 feet long, the size of a microwave oven.
Credit: NASA
Just consider the big increase in size – growing from a microwave oven to a car !
The “Marie Curie” flight spare and the actual “Sojourner” rover on Mars are 2 feet (65 centimeters) long – about the size of a microwave oven. The MER rovers “Spirit and Opportunity” and the “Surface System Test Bed” rover are 5.2 feet (1.6 meters) long – about the size of a golf cart. The MSL “Curiosity” and the “Vehicle System Test Bed” rover are 10 feet (3 meters) long – about the size of a car.
Side view of Three Generations of Mars Rovers
Front; flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner. Left; Mars Exploration Rover Project test rover. Right; Mars Science Laboratory test rover Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
With your own eyes you can see the rapid and huge generational change in Mars rovers if you have the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and stroll by the Mars exhibit with full scale models of all three of NASA’s Red Planet rovers.
At the KSC Visitor Complex in Florida you can get within touching distance of the Martian Family of Rovers and the generational differences in size and complexity becomes personally obvious and impressive.
NASA’s Family of Mars rovers at the Kennedy Space Center
Full scale models on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Curiosity and Spirit/Opportunity are pictured here. Sojourner out of view. Credit: Ken Kremer
All of the Mars rovers blasted off from launch pads on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity launched atop Delta II rockets at Space Launch Complex 17 in 1996 and 2003. Curiosity launched atop an Atlas V at Space Launch Complex 41 in 2011.
Three Generations of Mars Rovers with Standing Mars Engineers
The rovers are pictured here with real Mars Engineers to get a sense of size and perspective. Front rover is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner. At left is a Mars Exploration Rover Project test rover, working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity. At right is a Mars Science Laboratory test rover the size of Curiosity which is targeting a August 2012 Mars landing. The Mars engineers are JPL's Matt Robinson, left, and Wesley Kuykendall. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Opportunity is still exploring Mars to this day – 8 years after landing on the Red Planet, with a warranty of merely 90 Martian days.
Curiosity is scheduled to touch down inside Gale crater on 6 August 2012.
So, what comes next ? Will there be a 4th Generation Mars rover ?
Ebb and Flow - New Names for the GRAIL Twins in Lunar Orbit. 4th Grade Students from Montana win NASA’s contest to rename the GRAIL A and GRAIL B spacecraft. Artist concept of twin GRAIL spacecraft flying in tandem orbits around the Moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail and unravel the hidden mysteries of the lunar interior’s composition. Credit: NASA/JPL Montage:Ken Kremer
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A classroom of America’s Youth from an elementary school in Bozeman, Montana submitted the stellar winning entry in NASA’s nationwide student essay contest to rename the twin GRAIL lunar probes that just achieved orbit around our Moon on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 2012
“Ebb” & “Flow” – are the dynamic duo’s official new names and were selected because they clearly illuminate the science goals of the gravity mapping spacecraft and how the Moon’s influence mightily affects Earth every day in a manner that’s easy for everyone to understand.
“The 28 students of Nina DiMauro’s class at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School have really hit the nail on the head,” said GRAIL principal investigator Prof. Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
“We asked the youth of America to assist us in getting better names.”
“We chose Ebb and Flow because it’s the daily example of how the Moon’s gravity is working on the Earth,” said Zuber during a media briefing held today (Jan. 17) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The terms ebb and flow refer to the movement of the tides on Earth due to the gravitational pull from the Moon.
“We were really impressed that the students drew their inspiration by researching GRAIL and its goal of measuring gravity. Ebb and Flow truly capture the spirit and excitement of our mission.”
Leland Melvin, NASA Associate Administrator for Education, left, Maria Zuber, GRAIL Prinicipal Investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and James Green, Director of the Planetary Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, right, applaud students from Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont. during a news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Nine hundred classrooms and more than 11,000 students from 45 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, participated in a contest that began in October 2011 to name the twin lunar probes. Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers
Ebb and Flow are flying in tandem around Earth’s only natural satellite, the first time such a feat has ever been attempted.
As they fly over mountains, craters and basins on the Moon, the spaceships will move back and forth in orbit in an “ebb and flow” like response to the changing lunar gravity field and transmit radio signals to precisely measure the variations to within 1 micron, the width of a red blood cell.
The breakthrough science expected from the mirror image twins will provide unprecedented insight into what lurks mysteriously hidden beneath the surface of our nearest neighbor and deep into the interior.
The winning names from the 4th Graders of Emily Dickinson Elementary School were chosen from essays submitted by nearly 900 classrooms across America with over 11,000 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, Zuber explained.
The students themselves announced “Ebb” and “Flow” in a dramaric live broadcast televised on NASA TV via Skype.
“We are so thrilled that our names were chosen and excited to share this with you. We can’t believe we won! We are so honored. Thank you!” said Ms. DiMauro as the very enthusiastic students spelled out the names by holding up the individual letters one-by-one on big placards from their classroom desks in Montana.
Watch the 4th Grade Kids spell the names in this video!
Until now the pair of probes went by the rather uninspiring monikers of GRAIL “A” and “B”. GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory.
The twin crafts’ new names were selected jointly by Prof. Zuber and Dr. Sally Ride, America’s first woman astronaut, and announced during today’s NASA briefing.
NASA’s naming competition was open to K-12 students who submitted pairs of names and a short essay to justified their suggestions.
“Ebb” and “Flow” (GRAIL A and GRAIL B) are the size of washing machines and were launched side by side atop a Delta II booster rocket on September 10, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
They followed a circuitous 3.5 month low energy path to the Moon to minimize the fuel requirements and overall costs.
So far the probes have completed three burns of their main engines aimed at lowering and circularizing their initial highly elliptical orbits. The orbital period has also been reduced from 11.5 hours to just under 4 hours as of today.
“The science phase begins in early March,” said Zuber. At that time the twins will be flying in tandem at 55 kilometers (34 miles) altitude.
The GRAIL twins are also equipped with a very special camera dubbed MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) whose purpose is to inspire kids to study science.
“GRAIL is NASA’s first planetary spacecraft mission carrying instruments entirely dedicated to education and public outreach,” explained Sally Ride. “Over 2100 classrooms have signed up so far to participate.”
Thousands of middle school students in grades five through eight will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests for study to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego which is managed by Dr. Ride in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.
By having their names selected, the 4th graders from Emily Dickinson Elementary have also won the prize to choose the first target on the Moon to photograph with the MoonKam cameras, said Ride.
Zuber notes that the first MoonKAM images will be snapped shortly after the 82 day science phase begins on March 8.
Ebb & Flow Achieve Lunar Orbit on New Year’s Weekend 2012
NASA’s twin GRAIL-A & GRAIL-B spacecraft are orbiting the Moon in this astrophoto taken on Jan. 2, 2012 shortly after successful Lunar Orbit Insertions on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 2012.
Credit: Ken Kremer
NASA’s car-sized Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover is now on course to touch down inside a crater on Mars in August following the completion of the biggest and most crucial firing of her 8.5 month interplanetary journey from Earth to the Red Planet.
Engineers successfully commanded an array of thrusters on MSL’s solar powered cruise stage to carry out a 3 hour long series of more than 200 bursts last night (Jan. 11) that changed the spacecraft’s trajectory by about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) – an absolute necessity that actually put the $2.5 Billion probe on a path to Mars to “Search for Signatures of Life !”
“We’ve completed a big step toward our encounter with Mars,” said Brian Portock of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., deputy mission manager for the cruise phase of the mission. “The telemetry from the spacecraft and the Doppler data show that the maneuver was completed as planned.”
Mars Science Lab and cruise stage separate from Centaur upper stage just minutes after Nov. 26, 2011 launch. Thrusters on cruise stage performed course correction on Jan. 11, 2012. Up to 6 firings total will put the NASA robot on precision course to Mars.
Credit: NASA TV
This was the first of six possible TCM’s or trajectory correction maneuvers that may be required to fine-tune the voyage to Mars.
Until now, Curiosity was actually on a path to intentionally miss Mars. Since the Nov. 26, 2011 blastoff from Florida, the spacecraft’s trajectory was tracking a course diverted slightly away from the planet in order to prevent the upper stage – trailing behind – from crashing into the Red Planet.
The upper stage was not decontaminated to prevent it from infecting Mars with Earthly microbes. So, it will now sail harmlessly past the planet as Curiosity dives into the Martian atmosphere on August 6, 2012.
The thruster maneuver also served a second purpose, which was to advance the time of the Mars encounter by about 14 hours. The TCM burn increased the velocity by about 12.3 MPH (5.5 meters per second) as the vehicle was spinning at 2 rpm.
“The timing of the encounter is important for arriving at Mars just when the planet’s rotation puts Gale Crater in the right place,” said JPL’s Tomas Martin-Mur, chief navigator for the mission.
Video caption: Rob Manning, Curiosity Mars Science Lab Chief Engineer at NASA JPL describes the Jan. 11, 2012 thruster firing that put the robot on a precise trajectory to Gale Crater on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL
As of today, Jan. 12, the spacecraft has traveled 81 million miles (131 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. It is moving at about 10,300 mph (16,600 kilometers per hour) relative to Earth, and at about 68,700 mph (110,500 kilometers per hour) relative to the Sun.
The next trajectory correction maneuver is tentatively scheduled for March 26, 2012.
Curiosity rover launches to Mars atop Atlas V rocket on Nov. 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer
The goal of the 1 ton Curiosity rover is to investigate whether the layered terrain inside Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favorable for supporting Martian microbial life in the past or present and if it preserved clues about whether life ever existed.
Curiosity will search for the ingredients of life, most notably organic molecules – the carbon based molecules which are the building blocks of life as we know it. The robot is packed to the gills with 10 state of the art science instruments including a 7 foot long robotic arm, scoop, drill and laser rock zapper.
Curiosity’s Roadmap through the Solar System-From Earth to Mars
Schematic shows 8.5 month interplanetary trajectory of Curiosity. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Countdown – 205 days to go until Curiosity lands at Gale Crater on Mars !
January 2012 marks the 8th anniversary of the landings of NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers back in January 2004.
Opportunity continues to operate to this day. Read my salute to Spirit here
Spirit Mars rover - view from Husband Hill summit. Spirit snapped this view self portrait from the summit of Husband Hill inside Gusev crater on Sol 618 on 28 September 2005. The rovers were never designed or intended to climb mountains. It took more than 1 year for Spirit to scale the Martian mountain. This image was created by an international team of astronomy enthusiasts and appeared on the cover of the 14 November 2005 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine and the April 2006 issue of Spaceflight magazine. Also selected by Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on 28 November 2005. Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo, Douglas Ellison, Bernhard Braun and Kenneth Kremer. NASA/JPL/Cornell/Aviation Week & Space Technology
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January 2012 marks the 8th anniversary since of the daring landing’s of “Spirit” and “Opportunity” – NASA’s now legendary twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), on opposite sides of the Red Planet in January 2004. They proved that early Mars was warm and wet – a key finding in the search for habitats conducive to life beyond Earth.
I asked the leaders of the MER team to share some thoughts celebrating this mind-boggling milestone of “8 Years on Mars” and the legacy of the rovers for the readers of Universe Today. This story focuses on Spirit, first of the trailblazing twin robots, which touched down inside Gusev Crater on Jan. 3, 2004. Opportunity set down three weeks later on the smooth hematite plains of Meridiani Planum.
“Every Sol is a gift. We push the rovers as hard as we can,” Prof. Steve Squyres informed Universe Today for this article commemorating Spirit’s landing. Squyres, of Cornell University, is the Scientific Principal Investigator for the MER mission.
“I seriously thought both Spirit and Opportunity would be finished by the summer of 2004,” Ray Arvidson told Universe Today. Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, is the deputy principal investigator for the MER rovers.
'Calypso' Panorama of Spirit's View from 'Troy'
This full-circle view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the terrain surrounding the location called "Troy," where Spirit became embedded in soft soil during the spring of 2009. The hundreds of images combined into this view were taken beginning on the 1,906th Martian day (or sol) of Spirit's mission on Mars (May 14, 2009) and ending on Sol 1943 (June 20, 2009). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
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Spirit endured for more than six years and Opportunity is still roving Mars today !
The dynamic robo duo were expected to last a mere three months, or 90 Martian days (sols). In reality, both robots enormously exceeded expectations and accumulated a vast bonus time of exploration and discovery in numerous extended mission phases.
Spirit survived three harsh Martian winters and only succumbed to the Antarctic-like temperatures when she unexpectedly became mired in an unseen sand trap driving beside an ancient volcanic feature named ‘Home Plate’ that prevented the solar arrays from generating life giving power to safeguard critical electronic and computor components.
Spirit was heading towards another pair of volcanic objects named von Braun and Goddard and came within just a few hundred feet when she died.
Everest Panorama from Husband Hill summit
It took Spirit three days, sols 620 to 622 (Oct. 1 to Oct. 3, 2005), to acquire all the images combined into this mosaic, called the "Everest Panorama". Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
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“I never thought that we would still be planning sequences for Opportunity today and that we only lost Spirit because of her limited mobility and bad luck of breaking through crusty soil to get bogged down in loose sands,” said Arvidson
By the time of her last dispatch from Mars in March 2010, Spirit had triumphantly traversed the red planets terrain for more than six years of elapsed mission time – some 25 times beyond the three month “warranty” proclaimed by NASA as the mission began back in January 2004.
The "Columbia Hills" in Gusev Crater on Mars
Husband Hill is 3.1 kilometers distant. Spirit took this mosaic of images with the panoramic camera at the beginning of February, 2004, less than a month after landing on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
“I am feeling pretty good as the MER rover anniversaries approach in that Spirit had an excellent run, helping us understand without a doubt that early Mars had magmatic and volcanic activity that was “wet”, Arvidson explained.
“Magmas interacted with ground water to produce explosive eruptions – at Home Plate, Goddard, von Braun – with volcanic constructs replete with steam vents and perhaps hydrothermal pools.”
Altogether, the six wheeled Spirit drove over 4.8 miles (7.7 kilometers) and the cameras snapped over 128,000 images. NASA hoped the rovers would drive about a quarter mile during the planned 90 Sol mission.
“Milestones like 8 years on Mars always make me look forward rather than looking back,” Squyres told me.
Carbonate-Containing Martian Rocks discovered by Spirit Mars Rover
Spirit collected data in late 2005 which confirmed that the Comanche outcrop contains magnesium iron carbonate, a mineral indicating the past environment was wet and non-acidic, possibly favorable to life. This view was captured during Sol 689 on Mars (Dec. 11, 2005). The find at Comanche is the first unambiguous evidence from either Spirit or Opportunity for a past Martian environment that may have been more favorable to life than the wet but acidic conditions indicated by the rovers' earlier finds. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
Spirit became the first robotic emissary from humanity to climb a mountain beyond Earth, namely Husband Hill, a task for which she was not designed.
“No one expected the rovers to last so long,” said Rob Manning to Universe Today. Manning, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory, Pasadena, CA. was the Mars Rover Spacecraft System Engineering team lead for Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL)
“Spirit surmounted many obstacles, including summiting a formidable hill her designers never intended her to attempt.”
“Spirit, her designers, her builders, her testers, her handlers and I have a lot to be thankful for,” Manning told me.
After departing the Gusev crater landing pad, Spirit traversed over 2 miles to reach Husband Hill. In order to scale the hill, the team had to create a driving plan from scratch with no playbook because no one ever figured that such a mouthwatering opportunity to be offered.
Spirit Rover traverse map from Gusev Crater landing site to Home Plate: 2004 to 2011
It took over a year to ascend to the hill’s summit. But the team was richly rewarded with a science bonanza of evidence for flowing liquid water on ancient Mars.
Spirit then descended down the other side of the hill to reach the feature dubbed Home Plate where she now rests and where she found extensive evidence of deposits of nearly pure silica, explosive volcanism and hot springs all indicative of water on Mars billions of years ago.
“Spirit’s big scientific accomplishments are the silica deposits at Home Plate, the carbonates at Comanche, and all the evidence for hydrothermal systems and explosive volcanism, Squyres explained. “ What we’ve learned is that early Mars at Spirit’s site was a hot, violent place, with hot springs, steam vents, and volcanic explosions. It was extraordinarily different from the Mars of today.”
“We’ve still got a lot of exploring to do [with Opportunity], but we’re doing it with a vehicle that was designed for a 90-sol mission,” Squyres concluded. “That means that ever sol is a gift at this point, and we have to push the rover and ourselves as hard as we can.”
NASA concluded the last attempt to communicate with Spirit in a transmission on May 25, 2011.
Spirit Rover traverse map from Husband Hill to resting place at Home Plate: 2004 to 2011The Last View Ever from Spirit rover on Mars
Spirit’s last panorama from Gusev Crater was taken during February 2010 before her death from extremely low temperatures during her 4th Martian winter. Spirit was just 500 feet from her next science target - dubbed Von Braun – at center, with Columbia Hills as backdrop.
Mosaic Credit: Marco De Lorenzo/ Kenneth Kremer/ NASA/JPL/Cornell University
Mosaic featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on 30 May 2011 - http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110530.html
Meanwhile, the Curiosity Mars Science Lab rover, NASA’s next Red Planet explorer, continues her interplanetary journey on course for a 6 August 2012 landing at Gale Crater.
Jan 11: Free Lecture by Ken Kremer at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA at 8 PM for the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society. Topic: Mars & Vesta in 3 D – Plus Search for Life & GRAIL
Moon and International Space Station from NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. This photo was taken in the early evening of Jan. 4. Equipment: Nikon D3S, 600mm lens and 2x converter, Heavy Duty Bogen Tripod with sandbag and a trigger cable to minimize camera shake. Camera settings: 1/1600 @ f/8, ISO 2500 on High Continuous Burst. Credit: NASA
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Has the International Space Station (ISS) secretly joined NASA’s newly arrived GRAIL lunar twins orbiting the Moon?
No – but you might think so gazing at these dazzling new images of the Moon and the ISS snapped by a NASA photographer yesterday (Jan. 4) operating from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Check out this remarkable series of NASA photos above and below showing the ISS and her crew of six humans crossing the face of Earth’s Moon above the skies over Houston, Texas. And see my shot below of the Moon near Jupiter – in conjunction- taken just after the two GRAIL spacecraft achieved lunar orbit on New Year’s weekend.
In the photo above, the ISS is visible at the upper left during the early evening of Jan. 4, and almost looks like it’s in orbit around the Moon. In fact the ISS is still circling about 248 miles (391 kilometers) above Earth with the multinational Expedition 30 crew of astronauts and cosmonauts hailing from the US, Russia and Holland.
Space Station Crossing Face of Moon
This composite of images of the International Space Station flying over the Houston area show the progress of the station as it crossed the face of the moon in the early evening of Jan. 4, 2012 over NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Credit: NASA
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The amazing photo here is a composite image showing the ISS transiting the Moon’s near side above Houston in the evening hours of Jan 4.
The ISS is the brightest object in the night sky and easily visible to the naked eye if it’s in sight.
With a pair of binoculars, it’s even possible to see some of the stations structure like the solar panels, truss segments and modules.
Check this NASA Website for ISS viewing in your area.
How many of you have witnessed a sighting of the ISS?
It’s a very cool experience !
NASA says that some especially good and long views of the ISS lasting up to 6 minutes may be possible in the central time zone on Friday, Jan 6 – depending on the weather and your location.
And don’t forget to check out the spectacular photos of Comet Lovejoy recently shot by Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank aboard the ISS – through the Darth Vader like Cupola dome, and collected here
Moon and International Space Station (at lower right) on Jan 4, 2012 from NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Credit: NASA click to emlargeMoon, Jupiter and 2 GRAILs on Jan. 2, 2012
Taken near Princeton, NJ after both GRAIL spacecraft achieved lunar orbit after LOI - Lunar Orbit Insertion- burns on New Year’s weekend 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer
Take a good close look at the Moon today and consider this; Two new Moon’s just reached orbit.
NASA is ringing in the New Year with a double dose of champagne toasts celebrating the back to back triumphal insertions of a pair of tiny probes into tandem lunar orbits this weekend that seek to unravel the hidden mysteries lurking deep inside the Moon and figure out how the inner solar system formed eons ago.
Following closely on the heels of her twin sister, NASA’s GRAIL-B spacecraft ignited her main braking rockets precisely as planned on New Year’s Day (Jan.1) to go into a formation flying orbit around the Moon, chasing behind GRAIL-A which arrived on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31).
“Now we have them both in orbit. What a great feeling!!!!” NASA manager Jim Green told Universe Today just minutes after the thruster firing was done. Green is NASA’s Director of Planetary Science and witnessed the events inside Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Ca.
“It’s the best New Year’s ever!!” Green gushed with glee.
GRAIL-B spacecraft entered Lunar Orbit on New Year’s Day 2012. Artist concept of GRAIL-B performing its lunar orbit insertion burn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The new lunar arrivals of GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B capped a perfect year for NASA’s Planetary Science research in 2011.
“2011 began the Year of the Solar System – which is a Mars year (~670 Earth days long)… and includes Grail B insertion, Dawn leaving Vesta this summer … And the landing of MSL! ,” Green said.
NASA’s GRAIL-A & GRAIL-B are orbiting the Moon in this image taken on Jan. 2, 2012 after Lunar Orbit Insertions on New Year’s Weekend. Click to enlarge.
Credit: Ken Kremer
“Cheers in JPL mission control as everything is looking good for GRAIL-B. It’s going to be a great 2012!!” JPL tweeted shortly after confirming the burn successfully placed GRAIL-B into the desired elliptical orbit.
After years of hard work, GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of MIT told Universe Today that she was very “relieved”, soon after hearing the good news at JPL Mission Control.
“Since GRAIL was originally selected I’ve believed this day would come,” Zuber told me shortly after the GRAIL-B engine firing was declared a success on New Year’s Day.
“But it’s difficult to convey just how relieved I am right now. Time for the Science Team to start their engines !”
Artist's concept depicts how the science instrument on the mirror image twin GRAIL spacecraft will send signals to each other to map the Moon's gravity and then transmit the data to Earth. Credit: NASA
At 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) on New Year’s Day, the main thruster aboard GRAIL-B automatically commenced firing to slow down the spacecraft’s approach speed by about 430 MPH (691 kph) and allow it to be captured into orbit by the Moon’s gravity. The preprogrammed maneuver lasted about 39 minutes and was nearly identical to the GRAIL-A firing 25 hours earlier.
The hydrazine fueled main thrusters placed the dynamic spacecraft duo into near-polar, highly elliptical orbits.
Over the next two months, engineers will trim the orbits of both spacecraft to a near-polar, near-circular formation flying orientation. Their altitudes will be lowered to about 34 miles (55 kilometers) and the orbital periods trimmed from their initial 11.5 hour duration to about two hours.
The science phase begins in March 2012. For 82 days, the mirror image GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B probes will be flying in tandem with an average separation of about 200 kilometers as the Moon rotates beneath.
“GRAIL is a Journey to the Center of the Moon,” Zuber explained at a media briefing. “It will use exceedingly precise measurements of gravity to reveal what the inside of the Moon is like.”
As one satellite follows the other, in the same orbit, they will perform high precision range-rate measurements to precisely measure the changing distance between each other to within 1 micron, the width of a red blood cell, using a Ka-band instrument.
When the first satellite goes over a higher mass concentration, or higher gravity, it will speed up slightly. And that will increase the distance. Then as the second satellite goes over, that distance will close again.
The data returned will be translated into gravitational field maps of the Moon that will help unravel information about the makeup of the Moon’s mysterious core and interior composition. GRAIL will gather three complete gravity maps over the three month mission.
“There have been many missions that have gone to the Moon, orbited the Moon, landed on the Moon, brought back samples of the Moon,” said Zuber. “But the missing piece of the puzzle in trying to understand the Moon is what the deep interior is like.”
“Is there a core? How did the core form? How did the interior convect? What are the impact basins on the near-side flooded with magma and give us this Man-in-the-Moon shape whereas the back side of the Moon doesn’t have any of this? These are all mysteries that despite the fact we’ve studied the Moon before, we don’t understand how that has happened. GRAIL is a mission that is going to tell us that.”
“We think the answer is locked in the interior,” Zuber elaborated.
How will the twins be oriented in orbit to gather the data ?
“The probes will be pointed at one another to make the highly precise measurements,” said GRAIL co-investigator Sami Asmar of JPL to Universe Today. “The concept has heritage from the US/German GRACE earth orbiting satellites which mapped Earth’s gravity field. GRACE required the use of GPS satellites for exactly knowing the position, but there is no GPS at the Moon. So GRAIL was altered to compensate for no GPS at the Moon.”
GRAIL will map the gravity field by 100 to 1000 times better than ever before.
“We will learn more about the interior of the Moon with GRAIL than all previous lunar missions combined,” says Ed Weiler, the recently retired NASA Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC.
The GRAIL twins blasted off from Florida mounted side by side atop a Delta II booster on September 10, 2011 and took a circuitous 3.5 month low energy path to the Moon to minimize the overall costs.
So when you next look at the sky tonight and in the coming weeks just imagine those mirror image GRAIL twins circling about seeeking to determine how we all came to be !
GRAIL Project manager David Lehman cuts the cake for team members at JPL to celebrate 2 for 2 at the Moon. Credit: NASA/Jim GreenGRAIL team at JPL toasts success as twin spacecraft both went into orbit around the Moon on New Year’s weekend.
