The second of 2 NASA lunar probes on a mission to check the moon's inner core went into orbit as planned, the US house agency said.
The second Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL-B) can be part of GRAIL-A that reached lunar orbit on Saturday, in line with officers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Scientists hope the 2 probes can permit them to raised perceive the origins of the planets.
NEWS: Probes could notice Remnants of Moon's Lost Sibling
"NASA greets the new year with a replacement mission of exploration," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a very statement.
"The twin GRAIL spacecraft can vastly expand our data of our moon and also the evolution of our own planet," he said.
"We begin this year reminding individuals round the world that NASA will massive, daring things so as to achieve for brand new heights and reveal the unknown."
The $500-million try of laundry machine-sized satellites were launched on Sept. ten on a mission to map the moon's inner core for the primary time.
ANALYSIS: may Galactic Cataclysms Be Recorded on the Moon?
The spacecraft are in a very near-polar elliptical orbit, traveling round the moon each eleven.5 hours, NASA said. within the coming back weeks, that orbit time are reduced to merely underneath 2 hours.
Beginning in March, the 2 unmanned spacecraft can send radio signals that permit scientists to form a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field, serving to them to raised perceive its sub-surface options and also the origins of different bodies within the solar system.
The mission ought to shed lightweight on the unexplored way facet of the moon and check a hypothesis that there was once a second moon that fused with ours.
The two spacecraft have taken 3 months to achieve the Moon as hostile the standard three-day journey taken by the manned Apollo missions. The longer journey allowed scientists to raised check the 2 probes.
NEWS: Earth could Have Swirled Moon's Core
Scientists believe that the Moon was fashioned when a planet-sized object crashed into the planet, throwing off a load of fabric that eventually became our planet's airless, desolate satellite.
How it heated up over time, making a magma ocean that later crystallized, remains a mystery, despite 109 past missions to check the Moon since 1959 and also the incontrovertible fact that twelve humans have walked on its surface.
The second Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL-B) can be part of GRAIL-A that reached lunar orbit on Saturday, in line with officers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Scientists hope the 2 probes can permit them to raised perceive the origins of the planets.
NEWS: Probes could notice Remnants of Moon's Lost Sibling
"NASA greets the new year with a replacement mission of exploration," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a very statement.
"The twin GRAIL spacecraft can vastly expand our data of our moon and also the evolution of our own planet," he said.
"We begin this year reminding individuals round the world that NASA will massive, daring things so as to achieve for brand new heights and reveal the unknown."
The $500-million try of laundry machine-sized satellites were launched on Sept. ten on a mission to map the moon's inner core for the primary time.
ANALYSIS: may Galactic Cataclysms Be Recorded on the Moon?
The spacecraft are in a very near-polar elliptical orbit, traveling round the moon each eleven.5 hours, NASA said. within the coming back weeks, that orbit time are reduced to merely underneath 2 hours.
Beginning in March, the 2 unmanned spacecraft can send radio signals that permit scientists to form a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field, serving to them to raised perceive its sub-surface options and also the origins of different bodies within the solar system.
The mission ought to shed lightweight on the unexplored way facet of the moon and check a hypothesis that there was once a second moon that fused with ours.
The two spacecraft have taken 3 months to achieve the Moon as hostile the standard three-day journey taken by the manned Apollo missions. The longer journey allowed scientists to raised check the 2 probes.
NEWS: Earth could Have Swirled Moon's Core
Scientists believe that the Moon was fashioned when a planet-sized object crashed into the planet, throwing off a load of fabric that eventually became our planet's airless, desolate satellite.
How it heated up over time, making a magma ocean that later crystallized, remains a mystery, despite 109 past missions to check the Moon since 1959 and also the incontrovertible fact that twelve humans have walked on its surface.
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