Nasa's Grail Mission Releases Video Shot Just Before It Crashed Into The Moon (VIDEO)

Watch An Actual Spacecraft Hit The Actual Moon

Two spacecraft which completed Nasa's Grail mission to map the Moon's gravity had a suitably dramatic end when they were crashed deliberately onto its surface in December.

The small craft took the video on 14 December, from six miles above the lunar surface.

Using a camera named the Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students camera (or MoonKam), since it was students who picked where it would photograph, it shows the surface of the satellite in spooky, high-res detail.

It took 2,400 frames to make the two-minute video, which runs at six times normal speed, Nasa said.

The $496m Grail mision launched in September 2011, and its two craft Ebb and Flow were placed in orbit three months later.

The tiny craft - about the size of washing machines - spent the best part of a year spinning around the Moon in order to map its gravity field, with more detail than we currently have about the Earth.

Once they ran out of fuel they were crashed on 17 December.

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