multi-ring basin tagged posts

This color-coded map shows the strength of surface gravity around Orientale basin on the moon, derived from GRAIL data. (The color scale represents units of “gals” — 1 gal is about 1/1000 of Earth’s surface gravitational acceleration.) Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

New results from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission are providing insights into the huge impacts that dominated the early history of Earth’s moon and other solid worlds, like Earth, Mars, and the satellites of the outer solar system.Researchers examine the origins of the moon’s giant Orientale impact basin. The research helps clarify how the formation of Orientale, approximately 3.8 billion years ago, affected the moon’s geology.

Located along the moon’s southwestern limb – the left-hand edge as seen from...