Mosaic of SMART-1/AMIE images showing the final Kaguya landing strip

Date: 11 Jun 2009
Satellite: SMART-1
Depicts: Large scale mosaic of SMART-1/AMIE images, with the nominal impact point of Kaguya indicated
Copyright: ESA/SMART-1/Space-X (Space Exploration Institute), Image mosaic: ESA (B. Grieger and B. Foing)

This large mosaic, of images gathered by the AMIE camera on board SMART-1, shows a 133 km wide strip on the Moon from the latitude 60°S to 68°S, as seen from above the expected impact point (after the JAXA update of 10 June) of the Kaguya lunar orbiter.

The Kaguya updated impact site is indicated with the circle in the centre of the mosaic at 80.4°E, 65.5°S. North on the Moon is up in this view, and the Sun illumination is from the West (from the right in this view). The large crater that is partly visible just left of the impact point, at the edge of the mosaic, is crater Gille with a ~66 km diameter.

These AMIE images were taken early in the SMART-1 mission in January 2005, when the spacecraft was at a medium distance from the lunar surface, allowing to have overlapping southern views of this region from a distance of 1000 km. Later in its mission SMART-1 orbited closer to the Moon and obtained higher resolution views from 300 km perilune.