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Published December 17, 2012, 10:43 AM

Areavoices: GRAIL twins Ebb and Flow to smash into moon today

At 4:28 p.m. (CST) today Dec. 17, the twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) moon probes will be intentionally crashed into a mountaintop near the moon’s north pole. You might think this a poor use of a half-billion of your tax dollars, but the mission has been an astounding success.

By: Astro Bob, Areavoices.com

  • GRAIL spacecraft (Ebb and Flow)
    • image
    Artist’s rendering of the the twin washing machine-sized GRAIL spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) orbiting in formation above the moon’s surface. Tiny fluctuations in the strength of gravity over different parts of the moon change the distance of the two probes from one another. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT

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