Overview Instruments Lunar Atlas Lunar Geology Phases of the Moon Ice on the Moon Results

Gravity Experiment Results About the gravity experiment  Demonstration of Lunar Prospector Orbit in Reference to A Gravity Map   Lunar Prospector's Doppler Gravity Experiment has produced the first operational gravity map of the Moon. Historical tracking data from the Lunar Orbiter and Apollo missions in the mid-1960s to early 1970s, as well as more recent data from the 1994 Clementine mission, yielded a generally low-resolution (before) representation of lunar gravity fields. Shown (in color) are contours of the lunar gravity field, represented by changes in acceleration. Negative values do not indicate anti-gravity, rather decreases in what's called the "central term" (average surface gravity) of 160,000 mgal, or what the lunar gravity field would be if the Moon were perfectly spherical with no density changes across its surface. In combination with these data, Prospector (after) has significantly refines the detail in mapping the Moon's mass concentrations (ÒmasconsÓ). In some cases, previously undetected mascons -- such as one at the center of a 450 kilometer impact basin -- have been unearthed by Prospector's Doppler Gravity Experiment. Lunar topography differences have been color-coded in the top map: peaks are shown in red and low points are shown in blue.