The Gravity Moon
NASA GRAIL dual-spacecraft gravimetry, positive Bouguer mascon structures, crustal thinning beneath impact basins, and lunar mantle plug rebounds.
ANOMALIA GRAVITATIS · GUIDED MASCON SECTION
The Moon has a hidden relief.
Read a gravity anomaly as a buried landscape: basin, thin crust, dense plug, orbital consequence.
01 · IMPACT BASIN
A crater can hide a mountain of mass.
The visible basin is only the upper expression of a much deeper structure. GRAIL measured the gravity field that the eye cannot see through the regolith.
Physical reading
Orbital perturbation field
The most prominent mass concentration on the near side. Dense mantle plug uplifted following giant impact, subsequently superloaded with 3–5 km of dense iron-rich flood basalt.
The selected basin drives the anomaly peak, cross-section, mass, and orbital reading.
GRAIL Crustal Gravity Anomaly & Mascon Model
Subsurface mantle uplift and dense basaltic fill across major lunar impact basins.
The most prominent mass concentration on the near side. Dense mantle plug uplifted following giant impact, subsequently superloaded with 3–5 km of dense iron-rich flood basalt.