NASA has recently released three separate visual images of the debris plume kicked up on the Moon's surface by the spacecraft of the agency's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission.

Though earlier the scientists had feared that the plume had been too diminutive to be spotted by the observers on Earth and the Hubble Space Telescope, the images, superimposing one another, have revealed a slight debris plume arising from the NASA rocket's crash into the sunlight-bereft Centaur crater of the Moon's South Pole.

While the scientists were expecting the plume to rise as high as ten kilometers into space, the hollow rocket and the somewhat squishy surface of the Moon led to a faint trace of 'ejecta', which rose only about one kilometer into space.

Nonetheless, noting that the images are a definite evidence of a debris plume being detected, the NASA chiefs have termed the LCROSS mission a "smashing success." The images are now being analyzed by the researchers at the space agency, in order to ascertain how much material was kicked up and what it chiefly constituted.

The LCROSS chief Anthony Colaprete said: "We are blown away by the data returned. The data appear to be of very high quality. There is a clear indication of a plume of vapor and fine debris."