GRAIL Mission Returns First Video of Moon's Far Side

NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission uses high-quality gravity field mapping of the moon to determine the moon's interior structure. The GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon. The imagery was taken on January 19th, 2012 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission's 'Ebb' spacecraft.

Transcript

00:00:00 Silent. Maria Zuber: I'm Maria Zuber, Principal Investigator of NASA's GRAIL mission. GRAIL is the first planetary robotic mission that includes an imaging experiment that's devoted entirely to education and outreach, called the MoonKAM system. This video clip was made by Ebb as it flew above the surface of the moon that we don't see from Earth, from the north pole towards the south pole. The far side of the moon is extremely rugged. The surface also contains many impact craters, which are preserved features from asteroids that hit the moon's surface after it formed. The MoonKAM investigation will begin in March, when middle school students will have the opportunity to target interesting areas of the moon that they want to study. So stay tuned!