Moon, Spacecraft | featured news

At 5:28 p.m. Monday, NASA’s Grail spacecraft will crash into the Moon’s shadows. (What would you call the half of the Moon facing away from the Sun?)

A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what’s inside Earth’s orbiting companion — all the way down to the core. “I could hardly be happier,” said the lead scientist, Maria Zuber. After two days of delays and almost another, “I was trying to be as calm as I could be.”