{"id":173268,"date":"2025-06-13T15:32:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=173268"},"modified":"2025-06-13T15:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:02:07","slug":"nasas-grail-mission-solves-lunar-mystery-of-moons-asymmetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/nasas-grail-mission-solves-lunar-mystery-of-moons-asymmetry\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s GRAIL Mission Solves Lunar Mystery of Moon\u2019s Asymmetry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NASA\u2019s GRAIL mission, launched in 2011, has helped solve the puzzle of the Moon\u2019s asymmetrical appearance.<br>Using dual satellites Ebb and Flow, the mission mapped the Moon\u2019s gravity field, revealing that the nearside has a thinner crust, higher heat levels, and was more volcanically active due to heat-producing elements like thorium and titanium.<br>In contrast, the farside has a thicker crust and fewer lava plains.<br>These differences are due to gravitational asymmetry and tidal flexing, caused by Earth\u2019s gravitational pull\u2014a key insight into the Moon\u2019s internal structure and thermal evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA\u2019s GRAIL mission, launched in 2011, has helped solve the puzzle of the Moon\u2019s asymmetrical appearance.Using dual satellites Ebb and Flow, the mission mapped the Moon\u2019s gravity field, revealing that the nearside has a thinner crust, higher heat levels, and was more volcanically active due to heat-producing elements like thorium and titanium.In contrast, the farside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":173269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5372],"tags":[68],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-173268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-may-2025","tag-science-technology-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173270,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173268\/revisions\/173270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173268"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=173268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}