NASA's Twin Spacecraft To Be Back-To-Back With The Moon On This New Year's Eve!

Finally after three and a half months of continuous journey, the twin spacecraft launched by NASA will finally come back-to-back with the Moon on this New Year. One of the probe (Grail-A) will be positioned on New Year's eve, and the other (Grail-B) on the New Year's day. The aim of these two probes is to study the Moon's uneven gravitational field.


An artist rendition of the GRAIL mission

These two probes that were short for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory would not land on the surface of the Moon. They would not start their science campaign immediately, rather they would slip into the lunar orbit and circle lower and lower for two long months to set into an orbit just 34 miles (55 kilometers) above the Moon's surface. The probe was launched in September 2011, and both the Grails moved in different directions. They have already covered a distance of two and half million miles (3.22 million kilometers) and would start taking its measurements from March 2012. They would take measurements for 82 days and would always stay 75 to 225 miles apart. The average separation between the two probes will be of 124 miles. According to Maria Zuber, mission's chief scientist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the reason behind this launch was lack of knowledge about our very own Moon. As per him today we know more about the Mars than the Moon. The fact that Moon's one side is more hilly as compared to the side that always faced the Earth has left the scientists puzzled. It is also believed that the Earth earlier had two moons that collided once and formed the Moon that we see today.

The long term plans of NASA are also very clear. Even if they collect new information about the Moon and develop understanding and knowledge, they are in no plans of sending astronauts to the Moon, atleast in the near future.

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