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Elementary School Kids Explore the Moon At Close Range

Posted by samzenpus on from the permission-and-release-form dept.

sighted writes "The twin robotic spacecraft that make up the new GRAIL mission to map the moon's gravity include small cameras in addition to their primary scientific instruments. The first images from those cameras, as selected by school kids, were downlinked to Earth on March 20. 'MoonKAM is based on the premise that if your average picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture from lunar orbit may be worth a classroom full of engineering and science degrees,' said Maria Zuber, GRAIL mission principal investigator."

4 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Darn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Given the summary title, I was hoping that we'd actually sent some kids into lunar orbit... as an elementary school teacher, I know a few I wouldn't mind sending.

  2. A thousand words by ringman8567 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Every time I see a picture is worth a thousand words I ask myself which takes up more disc space?

    1. Re:A thousand words by Nationless · · Score: 1, Funny

      A .txt document with 1000 random words gave me a 5.17 KB file. This value is an estimate since not all words are equal in the eyes of storage.

      For comparison here is a 5.17 KB image: http://www.dreslough.com/main/bandw/cutedrg3.gif.

      I've always been a fan of my personal variant of the saying; "A picture is worth a thousand words, but a word can inspire a thousand pictures."

  3. How they gettin' back? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Come on.

    Everyone knows a kid or ten they'd like to put into lunar orbit.