Last Kaguya HDTV Images Before Impact

By Nancy Atkinson - June 19, 2009 at 7:53 AM UTC | Missions
Kaguya-image-before-impact.jpg

[/caption] The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released the final still images taken by the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) from Kaguya, just before it completed its mission by impacting the moon on June 11, 2009. An entire series of images were taken with an interval of about one minute by the HDTV (Teltephoto) while Kaguya maneuvered its way to impact in Gill Crater.

Here's a link to a Flash animation showing the images in succession. Click the "up" arrow to proceed through the images.

The last image taken is basically just black as it approached the darkened bottom of the crater. This is the second to the last image taken: [caption id="attachment_32928" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Kaguya 2nd to last image. Credit: JAXA"]

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Visible is the surface of the Moon getting closer as Kaguya approached impact.

Kaguya launched on September 14, 2007 and spent nearly two years studying the moon before the planned impact. An Australian telescope observed the controlled crash of Japan's Kaguya lunar probe into the moon Wednesday, an important warm-up act before a NASA's LCROSS impactor attempts a similar feat in October. Here's the series of images from Australia: [caption id="attachment_32936" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="The image above shows a sequence of four frames around the impact time, with a bright impact flash visible in the second frame, and faintly seen in the third and fourth. Credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope by Jeremy Bailey (University of New South Wales) and Steve Lee (Anglo-Australian Observatory)"]

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Browse through more images taken by the Kaguya HDTV Archives, the JAXA digital archives,, and the

JAXA channel on YouTube.

Hat tip to Joel Raupe at Lunar Networks

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com