KAGUYA’s Lunar Legacy

On Monday JAXA released more footage taken by the KAGUYA orbiter during its lunar mapping mission. KAGUYA spent several months flying over the moon at altitudes ranging from 10-50km (about 6-30 miles) taking video with its high-definition camera before finally ending its mission and crash landing onto the moon on June 10, 2009.

The sequence below is from the most recently released series of videos. It shows the 30+ mile-wide crater Anaxagoras in beautiful high-definition color, shot with the camera’s telephoto lens. This one is one of my favorites from the mission…..the details in the crater walls are amazing! Check out more videos on the JAXA site here, or in the video section of my sidebar. I’ll be adding more soon.

It’s nice to see new images from KAGUYA even now, five months after its demise.

Video: JAXA/NHK