Smart-1 Final Impact Caught on Film

Following on from my earlier post yesterday concerning the fate of the European Space Agency’s Smart-1 probe, which can be viewed here, it has been confirmed that the probe, which had completed over two thousand orbits during its mission as it mapped the lunar surface, successfully completed its final journey to destruction, culminating in a high speed 4500 miles an hour impact with the moon’s surface at 0542 GMT.

The planned impact could have happened somewhat earlier, however, were it not for mission control making a final tweak to its course so as to facilitate it avoiding a mile high crater rim which it otherwise would have stuck. If the probe had struck this crater rim then the impact would have occurred on the dark side of the moon and would therefore not have been visible.

A sequence of photographs, linked to form a brief film, has been released – and can be viewed here (links to an external page on this server). This sequence clearly shows a brief, bright flash which as the probe strikes the lunar surface, its mission now complete.

Click to link back to the front page.