Bizarre Lunar Orbits

“The Moon is extraordinarily lumpy, gravitationally speaking,” Konopliv continues. “I don’t mean mountains or physical topography. I mean in mass. What appear to be flat seas of lunar lava have huge positive gravitational anomalies—that is, their mass and thus their gravitational fields are significantly stronger than the rest of the lunar crust.” Known as mass concentrations or “mascons,” there are five big ones on the front side of the Moon facing Earth, all in lunar maria (Latin for “seas”) and visible in binoculars from Earth.

Blue/violet is reduced acceleration, yellow/red is increased acceleration.

h/t to D H