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GRAIL Mission Video Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the stately-grace dept.

SchrodingerZ writes "A new video was released yesterday by NASA from the GRAIL mission probes, which ended their mission last month as they impacted the lunar surface. 'Dramatic' footage was captured by the probe Ebb on December 14th. The video was taken from the 'MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school Students) cameras. It shows the view of Ebb flying at an altitude of 6 miles (10 km) above the Moon's northern hemisphere in the vicinity of Jackson crater (22.4N 163.1W).' Two videos were released, one from the fore and one from the aft of the probe, showing a forwards and backwards time lapse containing 931 and 1,489 pictures each of the lunar terrain. The footage was part of the probes' final systems check before they shut down and were sent into a controlled impact to a predetermined location."

36 comments

  1. What I want to know is by mcmonkey · · Score: 1

    What pants were they wearing when they hit the moon?

    1. Re:What I want to know is by Hatta · · Score: 1

      What shoes were they wearing? No-air Jordans?

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:What I want to know is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ummmm . . . what was IN the pants

  2. Recorded with... by okor · · Score: 2

    ..an iPhone? What's with the weird aspect ratio? Also, this is amazing.

    1. Re:Recorded with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I think would've been cool is impact imagery. I imagine it would give a better idea of scale.

  3. Anyone else hoping to see it crash? by Pezbian · · Score: 1

    Probably limited by data transmission bandwidth and signal reception.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
  4. is it true... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that these probes are powered by coconuts?

  5. Nice. Can u see the pixels? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thats cool, but I bet I could render something like that. You can also see the LOD pop as it gets further out. Either that or the camera is adjusting for light.

  6. Ask Slashdot question in the making... by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hey armchair astrophysicists... A thought occurred to me when watching this video. Since the moon has a negligible atmosphere, how close can a spacecraft reliably orbit it? Other than the ability to make sure eccentricity is near 0, what would stop a satellite from orbiting a few hundred meters above the tallest peak?

    1. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Abrasive dust lifted by electrostatic forces could really foul your optics.

    2. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by tjp · · Score: 4, Informative
      The whole purpose of this mission was to measure the variations in the moon's gravity by flying at a very low altitude. Consequently, those gravitational variations introduced changes in the orbit requiring relatively frequent corrections. It follows that the closer you orbit, the more actively you'll have to work to maintain that orbit. When you fly low over a mountain, the extra mass in that area will pull you down, and you'll have to correct for that with upward thrust.

      The moon's uneven gravity field presents a challenge to ground controllers planning trajectories for low-altitude lunar orbiters. The tug of lunar gravity can alter a satellite's orbit, requiring frequent rocket burns to adjust the spacecraft's path around the moon.

      Spaceflight Now, March 21, 2012

    3. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      negligible atmosphere...what would stop a satellite from orbiting a few hundred meters above the tallest peak?

      A small error in navigation :-)

      Essentially that's what they did to (intentionally) crash it. It hit a mountain side almost completely horizontally.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The serious answer is that the lunar mass is not uniformly distributed. The second-and-higher order gravitational anomalies will perturb a circular orbit into an elliptical one. Eventually, the semi-minor axis of the elliptical orbit will equal the lunar radius, and the spacecraft will crash.

      For reference, LRO spent almost two years in a mostly-circular orbit at 50 km altitude above the surface. Every two weeks or so they had to perform a maneuvering burn to maintain the circular orbit. At the end of those two years the spacecraft was placed in a more stable 30 km x 200 km orbit, where it remains.

    5. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You can't reliably orbit the moon at low altitude without a large supply of fuel to keep reboosting your orbiter. Because of mascons, the moon's gravitational field is very "lumpy" (has regions of higher and lower gravity) and thus such orbits are unstable.

    6. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by White+Yeti · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've even heard it more-broadly stated that there are NO long-term stable lunar orbits. It's an issue for orbital debris: since (1) objects don't burn up on entry, and (2) an uncontrolled orbit is impossible to predict in the long term, therefor all lunar orbiters should be removed rather than abandoned and lunar deorbits should be targeted rather than random.

    7. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SOLAR WIND

    8. Re:Ask Slashdot question in the making... by M1FCJ · · Score: 1

      Short answer: If the moon was a perfectly uniform sphere with a perfect gravity gradient (as you would assume in in high-school physics), yes. In real life, the moon is seriously lumpy and that plays havoc with the long-term low-altitude orbits.

  7. More like this! by pr0t0 · · Score: 1

    I mean, magnetometer data is good and necessary and all, but this is the kind of thing that really ignites the imagination and sparks interest.

    Also NASA, try to remember to turn your phone sideways when shooting video. It's ok, I do it too sometimes.

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  8. This is a really interesting mission. by flayzernax · · Score: 1

    I cant wait for the data to be interpolated and released from these missions. It has allot of potential to answer questions about the moon. Its probably the single most interesting experiment I can think of. It might even tell us if theres pockets of material buried in specific areas much like they used it to monitor earths aquifers.

  9. 10km? pfft by goertzenator · · Score: 1

    One can do 400m in KSP. If you're not snapping off spaceship parts you're too far away.

  10. I want to see it "kiss" the surface, darnit! by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    "Where's the Kaboom!? There's supposed to be a moon-shattering Kaboom!" -MM

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  11. Why didn't the shoot all the way down? by erice · · Score: 1

    The footage was part of the probes' final systems check before they shut down and were sent into a controlled impact to a predetermined location.

    Why shut anything down? Granted, they may not be able to see much since the impact was on the night side but I don't see what harm there could be in keeping the camera rolling until it's explosive decommissioning.

    1. Re:Why didn't the shoot all the way down? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Because NASA doesn't want you to know the TRUTH! That "probe" is on a laundry line coasting over a movie set in Area 51! Know why the video is so short? They ran out of hangar floor space that's why. I've got a cousin in New Mexico he told me ALL about it...

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  12. Obligatory VVS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA

  13. It does look like cheese! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow! We do some amazing things sometimes...

  14. no stars ?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously confirms that we never went to the moon, either during the Apollo times or this time too.

    This is done on a stage... there are no stars in the background !

    Nasa always gets it wrong , its so obvious.

    I mean... it's just obviously obvious.

  15. oblig by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 1

    STAY ON TARGET

  16. Re:LOL at USCD's web designer by mmell · · Score: 1
    You're welcome.

    No, on second thought, you're not. Please leave.

  17. Apple iPhone 5 not so bad after all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems the NASA camera has the same purple blotch issue as the iPhone 5.

  18. Even NASA is afflicted w/ Vertical Video Syndrome! by Y-Crate · · Score: 1

    It's bad, OK?

  19. Re:Even NASA is afflicted w/ Vertical Video Syndro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is bad is using a video host that forces an aspect ratio on you. Youtube also does lousy conversion. In this video you can see that it jumps once a second, probably due to bad frame rate conversion/pulldown. I can't believe NASA doesn't have the resources to recompress and host their own videos.

  20. Spectrography by vix86 · · Score: 1

    A thought just occurred.

    There's often talk about whether there is a lot of Helium-3 under the surface of the moon since the astronauts brought back rocks containing lots of it. Shouldn't this helium show up in a spectrum analysis of the dirt plume from the crash?

    1. Re:Spectrography by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      If the wavelengths can be interpolated from the data. So far it looks like 2 channel binary black and white. So I doubt it in this case.

  21. Reworked video by didoxdido · · Score: 1

    This is a rework of the GRAIL’s moon shots along with gravity maps created from the data acquired, enjoy it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX8nKojIiHI