An artist's depiction shows the twin spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) that comprise NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. A pair of NASA moon-mapping probes smashed themselves into a lunar mountain on December 17, 2012, ending a year-long mission that is shedding light on how the solar system formed.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:22am EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A pair of NASA moon-mapping probes smashed themselves into a lunar mountain on Monday, ending a year-long mission that is shedding light on how the solar system formed.

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, spacecraft had been flying around the moon, enabling scientists to make detailed gravity maps. The probes sped up slightly as they encountered stronger gravity from denser regions and slowed down as they flew over less-dense areas.

By precisely measuring the distance between the two probes, scientists discovered that the moon's crust is thinner than expected and that the impacts that battered its surface did even more damage underground.

Out of fuel and edging closer to the lunar surface, the probes were commanded to smash themselves into a mountain near the moon's north pole, avoiding a chance encounter with any Apollo or other relics left on the surface during previous expeditions.

"We do feel the angst about the end of the mission," said Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which oversaw the mission. "On the other hand, it is a celebration because this mission has accomplished tremendous science."

The U.S. space agency lost radio communications with the first spacecraft at 5:28 p.m. EST and the second about 20 seconds later, a NASA mission commentator said.

The probes' final resting place was named after the first U.S. woman in space, Sally Ride, who orchestrated GRAIL's educational outreach program before her death in July. The spacecraft included cameras that were operated by students.

After completing their primary mission in May, the GRAIL twins, each about the size of a small washing machine, moved closer to the lunar surface, dropping their orbits from about 34 miles to less than half that altitude to increase their sensitivity.

On December 6, the probes, nicknamed Ebb and Flow, flew down to about 7 miles to make one last detailed map of the moon's youngest crater.

"Ebb and Flow have removed a veil from the moon," said lead researcher Maria Zuber, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The discoveries not only will help scientists better understand how the moon formed and evolved, but what happened to Earth and the other inner planets which were similarly showered with comets and asteroids early in their history.

Several follow-up studies are planned, including coordinating the moon's new gravity maps with the locations where Apollo soil and rock samples were collected, Zuber said.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Phil Berlowitz)

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A Goldman Sachs sign is seen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, April 16, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 27, 2012 5:11pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc will pay more than $14 million to settle federal and state charges after it violated "pay-to-play" rules, in a case involving campaign contributions to former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Timothy Cahill.

Neil Morrison, a former vice president in Goldman's Boston office, worked extensively on Cahill's 2010 campaign while also soliciting underwriting business from the Massachusetts treasurer's office, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Cahill at the time was Massachusetts state treasurer.

In what the SEC described as its first "pay-to-play" case involving contributions other than cash, Goldman settled without admitting or denying the charges.

The SEC also charged Morrison, and the case against him continues.

Pay-to-play refers to cash or other contributions made to officials to influence the award of lucrative public contracts.

The SEC announced that Goldman will pay about $12 million to settle the SEC's case. Later Thursday, the Massachusetts attorney general's office revealed details on its related case, which brings the total settlement to $14.4 million.

The SEC's complaint describes how Morrison conducted campaign activities for Cahill, including fundraising, drafting speeches, and speaking to reporters, and how some of this work was done from Goldman's offices during business hours.

During the 13 months through October 2010, Morrison sent at least 364 campaign-related emails using his Goldman Sachs email account.

The campaign work gave Morrison access to Cahill and his staff, who provided him internal information about the underwriter selection process, the SEC said.

Morrison also directly discussed his campaign work in relation to securing business for Goldman Sachs in emails, according to SEC documents.

"From my standpoint as an advisor/consultant/friend, I am saying, PLEASE don't give these (underwriter) slots away willy-nilly," Morrison wrote in one email to an official in Cahill's office. "You are in the fight of your lives and need to reward loyalty and encourage friendship."

Morrison's use of Goldman work time and resources for the campaign activities also disqualified Goldman from bidding for municipal underwriting business with certain issuers in the state. But Goldman went on to participate in 30 prohibited underwritings, earning it more than $7.5 million in fees, the SEC said.

A Goldman spokesman, Michael DuVally, said in a statement that the firm had detected Morrison's activities, fired him, and cooperated with regulators.

"We accept responsibility for the consequences of his unauthorized actions under the terms of the settlements announced today and are pleased to resolve these investigations," DuVally said.

A lawyer for Morrison did not respond to a request for comment.

The case has drawn Goldman into the legal morass that has surrounded Cahill since he lost his gubernatorial bid to incumbent Deval Patrick.

In April, Cahill was indicted on criminal public corruption charges for allegedly using the state's taxpayer-funded lottery advertising budget to boost his sagging campaign.

An attorney for Cahill, Jeffrey Denner, said he had not reviewed the SEC documents, and would have no comment since the order did not directly name Cahill as a defendant.

Robert Khuzami, who heads the SEC's enforcement division, said in a statement: "The "pay-to-play" rules are clear: Municipal finance professionals that use their firm's resources to campaign on behalf of political candidates compromise themselves and the firms that employ them."

The SEC has undertaken a broader crackdown of "pay-to-play" practices in recent years. In 2010, it adopted new measures that target activities of investment advisers who seek out contracts to manage public pension plans and other types of investment accounts.

(Additional reporting by Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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1 of 18. Michael Meyer (L), lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, and John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist, California Institute of Technology look on during a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calfiornia August 2, 2012. A graphic of the MSL Curiousity rover and the cameras on board is seen in the background. The rover is set to land in the late evening of August 5, 2012.

PASADENA, California | Thu Aug 2, 2012 7:51pm EDT

PASADENA, California (Reuters) - NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was about a week away from wrapping up an 11-month journey to the Red Planet in 1999 when engineers noticed a problem - the spacecraft, designed to study Mars' environment, was not where it was supposed to be.

The gap grew alarmingly over the next few days. On September 23, Climate Orbiter began the brake to enter Mars' orbit as planned, but disappeared behind the planet 49 seconds early, severing radio contact with Earth. It was never heard from again.

Launching probes to Mars is not for the faint of heart. Out of the 40 spacecraft dispatched to the Red Planet, only 14 lived to fulfill their missions.

Against those grim odds, NASA is poised for its most unorthodox and risky landing yet. The $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to touch down at 1:31 a.m. EDT Monday (0431 GMT) next to a mountain that may harbor life-friendly environments.

"This is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted," NASA's associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld told reporters during a pre-landing news conference last month.

To deliver the one-ton robotic geologist near the mountain's base, engineers designed a contraption that would make cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg beam. The rover, about the size of a Mini Cooper car, is too heavy to bounce to the planet's surface in airbags or fly itself with rocket thrusters, systems successfully used by six previous NASA landers.

Instead, Mars Science Lab will be lowered to the ground on a tether spooled out by a flying platform that works like an aerial crane. NASA is the first to admit the idea sounds crazy, but managers are convinced it will work.

"We've done everything we could. We've tested everything we could test. We built everything to the best of our ability," said Doug McCuistion, who oversees NASA's Mars exploration programs. "Once you understand it, it's not a crazy concept."

History is not on NASA's side, though the United States has fared far better than Russia when it comes to Mars exploration. Out of 19 attempted missions, Russia and the former Soviet Union have had only a few partial successes.

Launch failures claimed nearly half of Russia's probes, including the ambitious Phobos-Grunt sample return mission last year. Other spacecraft sailed blindly past Mars or burned up in the planet's atmosphere during landing attempts.

Newcomers Japan and China have fared no better. Only Europe, which operates the Mars Express orbiter, has had beginner's luck on Mars.

"We learn from these things even if they aren't successful," McCuistion said.

Investigators have attributed the failed 1999 Climate Orbiter mission to human error: The flight software used metric units while the ground system that wrote the code used Imperial measures.

Two months later, a companion lander bit the dust - literally - when its rocket engines apparently shut down too early, causing the probe to crash to the ground.

And even when the engineering is perfect, Mars itself can throw mean curve balls. NASA's Mariner 9 and two Soviet orbiters arrived in May 1971 to find a global-wide dust storm in progress.

"We don't have the capability to predict these things," McCuistion said. "That is why Mars wins an awful lot of the time."

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Jackie Frank)

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