On this day in space! Sept. 10, 2011: NASA launches GRAIL probes to the moon to map lumpy lunar gravity

On Sept.

10, 2011, NASA's GRAIL spacecraft launched on a mission to the moon! GRAIL, which stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, was sent to the moon to map its gravitational fields .

Scientists could study the moon's interior structure by looking at maps of the moon's gravity.

Asteroid impacts from billions of years ago left dense pockets of material under the lunar surface, which can exert extra gravitational pull on spacecraft orbiting the moon .

So by measuring that gravitational pull, the GRAIL mission could reveal information about what lies beneath the surface.

The mission actually consisted of two twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow , which would fly in tandem around the moon to map variations in its gravitation field.

Both lifted off on the same Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida and arrived in lunar orbit almost four months later.

They mapped the moon for about nine months before NASA decided it was finished with the mission, and the two orbiters crashed into the moon .

A Delta II rocket launches NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission to the moon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sept.

10, 2011. (Image credit: NASA/Kenny Allen) Why it mattered The moon is a weird place.

It may look like a cold, gray ball of solid rock, but its density varies from location to location due to odd "mass concentrations" (or mascons for short) buried under the lunar surface.

That leads to a strange, lumpy gravity that's not uniform across the lunar surface.

Holy GRAIL! Photos From NASA's Moon Gravity Mission That's where GRAIL's Ebb and Flow probes came in.

Each of the twin spacecraft carried three instruments to map the interior of the moon .