{"id":10730,"date":"2012-03-07T13:40:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T13:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2012\/03\/07\/nasas-twin-grail-spacecraft-be\/"},"modified":"2012-03-07T13:40:25","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T13:40:25","slug":"nasas-twin-grail-spacecraft-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/07\/nasas-twin-grail-spacecraft-be\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA&#039;s Twin GRAIL Spacecraft Begin Collecting Lunar Data"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>PASADENA, Calif. &#8212; NASA&#8217;s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft orbiting the moon officially have begun their science collection phase. During the next 84 days, scientists will obtain a high-resolution map of the lunar gravitational field to learn about the moon&#8217;s internal structure and composition in unprecedented detail. The data also will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The initiation of science data collection is a time when the team lets out a collective sigh of relief because we are finally doing what we came to do,&#8221; said Maria Zuber, principal investigator for the GRAIL mission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, &#8220;but it is also a time where we have to put the coffee pot on, roll up our sleeves and get to work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The GRAIL mission&#8217;s twin, washing-machine-sized spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, entered lunar orbit on New Year&#8217;s Eve and New Years Day. GRAIL&#8217;s science phase began yesterday at 5:15 p.m. PST (8:15 p.m. EST). &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is going to be cool.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2012-061&#038;cid=release_2012-061\">Read the rest here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PASADENA, Calif. &#8212; NASA&#8217;s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft orbiting the moon officially have begun their science collection phase. During the next 84 days, scientists will obtain a high-resolution map of the lunar gravitational field to learn about the moon&#8217;s internal structure and composition in unprecedented detail. The data also will provide a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/07\/nasas-twin-grail-spacecraft-be\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">NASA&#039;s Twin GRAIL Spacecraft Begin Collecting Lunar Data<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5020],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-2N4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}