The pictures taken by the spacecraft's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15 over the polar region of the moon shows many large and small craters, ISRO sources said.

Another picture sent by TMC has filmed the bright terrain on the lower left of the rim of 117 km wide moretus crater and the equatorial region of the moon.

The picture shows the uneven surface of the moon with numerous craters. On the lower left, part of the Torricelli crater is seen.

related report
Chandrayaan-II Cleared By Govt To Be In Orbit By 2011-12
Even as India's maiden lunar probe circles the moon, the Centre has given its approval for Chandrayaan-II and it would be in orbit by 2012.

ISRO has started necessary research workfor the next mission for which the Centre has sanctioned necessary funds, Chandrayaan-I Project Director Mylswamy Annadurai told reporters. The second mission would be a fully indigenous one, he said.

Chandrayan-I is the best thing to happen to Indian space research and is designed to study the water availability and fertile standards of moon, he said.

The moon mission has proved that India is on par with any other nation which ventured to the earth's satellite, he said.

Stating that the pictures being received from moon were giving very valuable inputs, he said steps are being made to get continuous pictures by making some technical corrections.

Earlier, the Scientist was felicitated by the public at different places in Coimbatore district for the successful launch of the country's moon mission.

Accepting the felicitations, Annadurai exhorted the students to shelve their foreign dreams as opportunities were available within India.

The days of foreign students coming to India in pursuit of research works and higher studies were not far away, he said.

related report
SSTL Payload Computer Will Help Chandrayaan-1 Search The Moon For Ice
An on-board computer (OBC) specially built by British small satellite manufacturer SSTL will help the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 search for water by controlling the U.S Navy's Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload.

The Mini-SAR payload will detect water-ice in areas of permanent shadow around the lunar poles to a depth of a few metres. It can optimally distinguish water-ice from the dry lunar surface.

The OBC was successfully delivered to BAE Systems as part of a US Navy contract in 2007. The OBC695B is a radiation-hard computer specially designed for robust operation in a lunar orbit.

It is based on the OBC used by the Galileo test satellite, GIOVE-A which has been operating successfully in the very environmentally demanding Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) since its launch in December 2005.

SSTL's lunar expert, Andy Phipps commented on the achievement, "This marks SSTL's first system to be flown into lunar orbit and paves the way for more adventurous opportunities in the next few years, using lunar orbiters and subsystems in planetary space."

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