{"id":47500,"date":"2025-05-18T12:06:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T06:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=47500"},"modified":"2025-05-27T12:20:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T06:50:45","slug":"grail-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/grail-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAIL Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>GRAIL Mission Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>NASA&#8217;s GRAIL mission recently unveiled significant differences between the moon&#8217;s nearside and farside, attributing them to tidal deformation and varied volcanic activity.<\/p>\n<h2>About GRAIL Mission<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0<strong>NASA lunar mission<\/strong>\u00a0launched in 2011.<\/li>\n<li>It consisted of\u00a0<strong>two robotic spacecraft, Ebb and Flow<\/strong>, which orbited the moon to create the\u00a0<strong>most detailed gravitational map of the lunar surface to date.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The mission&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>primary goal<\/strong>\u00a0was to\u00a0<strong>measure variations in the moon\u2019s gravitational field<\/strong>, providing\u00a0<strong>critical insights into its internal structure and geological history.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The GRAIL mission achieved this\u00a0<strong>by precisely measuring<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>distance between the two spacecraft as they orbited<\/strong>\u00a0the moon.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Even tiny changes in this distance, caused by variations in the moon\u2019s gravitational pull, provided data about the moon\u2019s interior composition, crust thickness, and subsurface anomalies.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This approach has proven crucial for understanding the forces that shaped the moon\u2019s contrasting hemispheres.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>GRAIL\u00a0<strong>discovered\u00a0<\/strong>that the\u00a0<strong>Moon\u2019s crust was more porous<\/strong>\u00a0and not as thick as previously supposed.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It also<strong>\u00a0discovered long linear features called \u201cdikes\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>that were\u00a0<strong>evidence of the Moon\u2019s expansion by a few kilometres early in its history.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Recent Findings:<\/strong>\u00a0It unveiled significant\u00a0<strong>differences between the moon&#8217;s nearside and farside,\u00a0<\/strong>attributing them to\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Tidal deformation and gravitational asymmetry:\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The lunar\u00a0<strong>nearside flexes slightly more than the farside during its elliptical orbit around Earth,<\/strong>\u00a0a phenomenon\u00a0<strong>known as tidal deformation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This difference in flexibility is\u00a0<strong>primarily driven by Earth\u2019s gravitational pull,<\/strong>\u00a0which exerts a greater influence on the side facing our planet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Volcanic activity and heat distribution:\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The moon\u2019s\u00a0<strong>nearside was once more volcanically active than the farside<\/strong>\u00a0with vast plains of basaltic rock known as &#8220;mare.&#8221;\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This volcanic activity\u00a0<strong>concentrated heat-producing, radioactive elements like thorium and titanium in the nearside mantle,<\/strong>\u00a0resulting in a\u00a0<strong>significant temperature difference<\/strong>\u00a0between the two hemispheres, creating a long-term thermal imbalance that has shaped the moon\u2019s geology over billions of years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Crustal thickness and surface composition:\u00a0<\/strong>The<strong>\u00a0nearside crust is significantly thinner than the farside crust,\u00a0<\/strong>allowing magma from the moon\u2019s interior to more easily reach the surface in the past, leading to extensive lava flows.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>GRAIL Mission FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1<\/strong>. What was the primary objective of the GRAIL mission?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. To measure variations in the Moon\u2019s gravitational field.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2<\/strong>. Why does the Moon\u2019s nearside have more volcanic activity than the farside?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. Its crust is thinner, allowing magma to escape.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3<\/strong>. What were the names of the two robotic spacecraft used in the GRAIL mission?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. Ebb and Flow<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/science\/nasa-study-reveals-why-the-moon-look-so-different-on-each-side\/articleshow\/121218887.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) is a 2011 NASA lunar mission aimed at mapping the Moon&#8217;s gravity to study its internal structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":47531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-47500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-grail-mission","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}