On Dec. 17, 2012, NASA's GRAIL mission crashed into the moon.
GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, and the mission consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow that are about the size of a washer and dryer. They orbited the moon in tandem to map the moon's gravity field.The mission lasted about nine months, and they even completed an extended mission before the spacecraft began to run low on fuel, so NASA decided it was time to power them down. Both spacecraft bit the lunar dust pretty violently, falling faster than 3,700 miles per hour.
GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, and the mission consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow that are about the size of a washer and dryer. They orbited the moon in tandem to map the moon's gravity field.The mission lasted about nine months, and they even completed an extended mission before the spacecraft began to run low on fuel, so NASA decided it was time to power them down. Both spacecraft bit the lunar dust pretty violently, falling faster than 3,700 miles per hour.
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TechTranscript
00:00On this day in space.
00:03In 2012, NASA's GRAIL mission crashed into the moon.
00:07GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory,
00:10and the mission consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow
00:13that are about the size of a washer and dryer.
00:16They orbited the moon in tandem to map the moon's gravity field.
00:19The mission lasted about nine months,
00:21and they even completed an extended mission before the spacecraft began to run low on fuel,
00:25so NASA decided it was time to power them down.
00:29Both spacecraft bit the lunar dust pretty violently,
00:32falling faster than 3,700 miles per hour.
00:35And that's what happened on this day in space.
00:38♪ MUSIC ♪