NASA's newest spacecraft in orbit, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched on June 18 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, has started sending snaps back to earth.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera shot images of cratered terrain in the lunar highlands south of the Sea of Clouds. Pictures of cratered terrain represent a square measuring 0.87 miles wide.

Speaking about the snapshots, Mark Robinson, the LROC principal investigator said, "Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator--the dividing line between day and night--making us initially unsure of how they would turn out."
 
The $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is supposed to hunt for apt landing sites for future manned missions on moon while producing further detailed lunar atlas.
 
Measuring the solar and cosmic radiation, plotting out the surface topology, mineralogy, and chemical composition of Earth's nearest neighbor are among the tasks assigned to the solar-powered spacecraft.

The spacecraft will also look for water ice in the dark craters of the moon's South Pole.
 
A companion spacecraft, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, will crash into a shadowed crater on October 9 in hope of finding sure proof of water ice, with LCROSS, LRO and other Earth and space-based observatories watching it.