Fly me to the Moon

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2013/01/14 06:31 CST

Topics: pretty pictures, podcasts and videos, the Moon, GRAIL

I've been remiss in not posting this video before. It's an absolutely wonderful view -- two views, actually -- shot from two spaceships just days before they crashed onto the Moon. At an altitude of 10 kilometers, the GRAIL spacecraft were flying no higher above the lunar surface than humans routinely fly over Earth on commercial jets.

The videos were shot by GRAIL's MoonKAMs, two tiny cameras whose sole function was education and public outreach (a phrase that an acronym-happy NASA always shortens to "EPO"). While active, they had a primarily education function; classrooms of fifth- to eighth-grade students could apply for the opportunity to select targets for MoonKAM, and thousands of kids participated. But these videos are decidedly on the public outreach end of things. I challenge anyone to watch that video and not, for a moment at least, imagine themselves in the ship, flying over the Moon.

Comments:

Gary Ray Rogers: 01/14/2013 07:47 CST

It looks like a French noir movie. And if you anthropomorphize the little Grails you can hear them talking. *in French spoken very slowly* "The moon approaches so swiftly. Merde".

Anonymous: 01/14/2013 09:03 CST

Hi Emily all those holes you see in the videos --will all have a rock or fragment of rock at the bottom ? couldnt we dig a few up? if the moon is fractured and covered in dust wouldnt a solid dense rock show up on a sonar type ping,or are they buried so deep it doesnt make sense to dig em up ? either way all i want to do when i see those videos is get me spade and start digging :-)

Michael Peters: 01/15/2013 06:16 CST

Here is a slowed down version of this video. I thought the original was utterly mindblowing but too small and too fast. And too silent - for anyone who watched the movie 2001 with open-mouthed awe in their youth, these images need Ligeti's Lux Aeterna as a soundtrack. I took the quiet opening chords and slowed them down too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOfv1K9nCZw

Emily Lakdawalla: 01/15/2013 11:08 CST

@Michael: The first thing I said when Casey sent me a link to this video was "needs music." Thanks! @Anonymous: the "holes" are impact craters. The impactor would have mostly vaporized upon impact. All of the Moon's crust is made of fairly dense rock -- no need to dig :)