SMART-1's AMIE camera was pointed back towards the Earth to capture, in the best tradition of many previous lunar missions, a view of our home planet. The sequence of images is centred over Brazil at approximately 44.9º West and 19.2º South (North is to the left).

Final orbits offered new imaging opportunities
 

 
A sequence of images taken by SMART-1's AMIE camera prior to impact.

The images were taken between 16:55 and 17:34 CEST (14:55-15:34 UT). The sequences show the surface of the Moon passing under SMART-1 during the final orbits and show what a passenger on board the spacecraft would have seen shortly before impact and destruction.


 
A sequence of images taken by SMART-1's AMIE camera prior to impact.

The images were taken between 16:55 and 17:34 CEST (14:55-15:34 UT). The sequences show the surface of the Moon passing under SMART-1 during the final orbits and show what a passenger on board the spacecraft would have seen shortly before impact and destruction.

AMIE mosaic of geologically important southern region
 

 
This mosaic consists of images taken by the AMIE camera on board ESA's SMART-1 spacecraft on 30 August 2006, and shows a 400-kilometre-long area located within the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon.

This area has a diameter of 2600 kilometres and extends from the lunar South Pole to the Aitken crater. It is the largest and oldest known impact basin in the Solar System.

The upper mosaic image was taken at 07:52 CEST (05:52 UT) while the spacecraft was flying at 1391 kilometres over the lunar surface, and is centred around 167º East and 33º South. The bottom image was taken at 07:42 CEST (05:42 UT) while the spacecraft was flying at 1028 kilometres, and is centred around 170º East and 46º South. Three images taken by AMIE in the previous orbit are also part of the mosaic (shifted towards the right).

Towards the bottom of the mosaic, the 76-km-diameter Crater Oresme can been seen, while the top shows Mare Ingenii.

The individual images can be downloaded here:

AMIE mosaic 1, AMIE mosaic 2, AMIE mosaic 3, AMIE mosaic 4, AMIE mosaic 5, AMIE mosaic 6, AMIE mosaic 7, AMIE mosaic 8, AMIE mosaic 9

Illumination conditions at North Pole
 

 
This mosaic shows the Moon's North polar area and was taken during first phase of the SMART-1 mission in 2005.

This mosaic is valuable as it shows illumination conditions at the region. It is important to understand global illumination conditions to help in planning the location of future landing sites and, later, possible bases, on the Moon.

Ground observations at impact
 

 
This near-infrared image, taken by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), shows a contour map of the SMART-1 impact flash occurring on 3 September 2006, at 07:42 CEST (05:42 UT).

The flash was so bright that the image is saturated. The North (upper portion) and South (lower portion) of the flash are not identical, with a clear elongation on the south side in the direction of the spacecraft's motion.

SMART-1 legacy
 

 
This short animation shows the SMART-1 carrier radio signal in the last moments of the spacecraft's life, as detected by the Australia Telescope Compact Array (CSIRO) radio station on 3 September 2006.

The signal stopped at 07:42 CEST (05:42 UT), when the spacecraft hit the Moon. Other radio telescopes involved in tracking the probe - the German-Chilean TIGO (BKG) 6-metre antenna in Chile and the Mount Pleasant Observatory of the University of Tasmania (Australia) - also heard SMART-1's final signal. The Medicina (INAF) 32-metre antenna in Italy and the Fortaleza (ROEN) 14-metre antenna in Brazil were not in view of the spacecraft at the time of impact, but complemented the observations during the last orbit.

Starting in spring 2006, these radio measurements provided extremely precise tracking of SMART-1.

The animation shown here presents a time resolution of 5 seconds (i.e. the signal is presented every five seconds). However the radio observations were done with a very high accuracy, on a millionth-of-a-second time resolution. This time span corresponds to a 2-centimetre motion of the spacecraft.

The signal shown in the animation (the peaks) is the result of the interference between a radio signal received directly from SMART-1 and its reflection from the Moon's surface.

In parallel to these radio observations, the Radio Science Receiver of the SMART-1 KaTE/Ka-band experiment received on Earth the last signal from the spacecraft at 07:42:25 CEST (05:42:25 UT), through the NASA Deep Space Network radio station 'DSS13' in the California Desert.



Release date: 28 September 2007