Lunar probes to crash into cliffs

Next Media - NASA plans to crash a pair of small robotic science probes into the moon today after a successful year-long mission to learn what lies beneath the lunar surface, according to a Reuters report, quoting NASA officials.

The twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, spacecraft will make suicidal plunges into a mountain near the moon's north pole, a site selected to avoid the chance of hitting any of the Apollo or other lunar relics.

The impacts will take place about 20 seconds apart at 5:28 p.m. EST. The two spacecraft, each about the size of a small washing machine, have been flying in close formation around the moon for nearly a year to map the lunar gravity.