Farewell to Smart-1 – The End Looms

In only a matter of hours, the European Space Agency’s Smart-1 probe will end its three year mission in spectacular, if not rather undignified form as it impacts with the moon at an estimated 4,500mph.

As long as the probe misses the rims of craters on its final, shallow decent, the actual time of impact is due at 0543GMT this Sunday morning and, whilst the actual impact can only be seen with powerful telescopes, it is believed that the plume created by the probe’s impact – which is expected to form a new crater on the lunar surface up to 10 meters wide - could be visible using just binoculars as the resulting cloud of debris is highlighted by the sun.

Propelled by an ion drive, the probe has travelled more than 100,000,000 km using, somewhat astoundingly, only 60 litres of fuel.

As the probe makes the last leg of its journey, and hurtles through space to its final destination, I have no doubt that many would like to applaud its endeavours and wish it a fond farewell.

If you would like to track its final, solitary moments, ESA are offering a live webcam feed from mission control to mark to demise of this remarkable feat of engineering.

The live feed can be viewed here.

Alternatively, a host of imformation and imagery can be viewed at ESAs main Smart-1 page, which can be accessed here.

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