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NASA films dark side of the moon, finds no evidence of Brain Damage (video)
Take a moment to Breathe, because this one's kind of heady. NASA has just published a new video of the Dark Side of the Moon and, contrary to popular belief, it's not really all that dark. (We'd probably describe it as a subdued gray, if we had to, but feel free to go with Any Colour You Like.) Compiled into a 30-second video clip, this footage provides a cursory glimpse of the moon's hind parts (its "B-Side," if you will), panning over the rock from north to south, in all its crater-y glory. It's all part of an initiative from NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), which presumably spent a lot of Time and Money to build its twin spacecraft, nicknamed Ebb and Flow. On January 19th, the lab sent the pair up to that Great Gig in the Sky, as part of the GRAIL MoonKAM mission -- a "progressive" educational outreach program geared toward middle school students. Ebb was charged with filmic duties, and did a remarkable job of shooting On the Run with its MoonKAM camera, returning high res footage to NASA's engineers, and giving both Us and Them something to think about during the next lunar Eclipse. See the video (along with its eerily sync-able counterpart) after the break, and if you've got any questions about it, please don't hesitate to Speak to Me.
NASA's GRAIL spacecrafts enter Moon's orbit, set to map its gravitational field in March
Way back in September, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent a duo of Lockheed Martin-produced spacecraft toward one of its favorite test subjects, the Moon, as a part of its GRAIL mission -- Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. Now, nearly four months later, the administration has announced that the GRAIL-A and -B twin crafts have planted themselves within our Moon's orbit. According to NASA, they're currently in "a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours," and it plans to execute more "burn maneuvers" in the coming weeks to shorten that time frame to less than two. By March, the research crafts will be positioned in a "near-polar, near-circular orbit" 34 miles above its surface, at which point they'll begin surveying its gravitational pull, by using radio signals to determine the distance between both units. With this information, NASA hopes to better understand how gravity works, both above and below the Moon's surface, by detailing the findings in a high-resolution map. NASA also says that scientists can utilize it to get further insight into how our planets formed. Notably, both spacecraft feature a MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students), that will allow students request pictures of specific areas the lunar surface for later study. Best of all, using NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System" web app, you'll be able to follow the paths of both spaceships in detail. You'll find full details about the GRAIL mission at the source links below.
