Japan moon probe’s final moments revealed

By Robert Roy Britt

updated 12:26 p.m. ET June 19, 2009

The Japanese space agency on Friday released a series of images that document the final moments of the Kaguya lunar probe just before it slammed into the moon last week.

The images, released a day after NASA launched its own moon-slamming mission, reveal a now-familiar pockmarked landscape, desolate and with stark shadows, all up-close as the spacecraft sinks lower and lower toward its final resting place.

There is an increasingly somber feel of the photographs as Kaguya slides into darkness and demise, aiming at a landing site on an unlit part of the moon.

The intent was to end the mission with a controlled crash that could be observed from Earth, which was accomplished. On LiveScience, the series of final photographs have been put into a "Farewell, Kaguya" Album.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, launched Kaguya on Sept. 14, 2007. Kaguya beamed back a spectacular movie earlier this year of Earth eclipsing the sun as seen from the moon. It also provided fresh data on the composition of the moon's mysterious far side.

NASA launched two U.S. probes to the moon late Thursday. The mission is sending a powerful lunar orbiter that will arrive Monday, and a pair of impactor probes slated to crash into the lunar south pole on Oct. 9 to search for evidence of water ice.

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