Exploration of the Moon with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the SELENE spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take
September 1996 lunar eclipse dark mare. This is the second of four lunar year eclipses at the ascending node of the moon's orbit. September 1996 lunar eclipse A total lunar eclipse took place on Friday, September 27, 1996, the second of two lunar eclipses in 1996, the first being on Thursday, April 4. It was part of Lunar Saros 127. The eclipse started at 0:13:59 UTC, the greatest was at 2:54:22 and ended at 5:34:51. Its length of totality lasted more than 1 hours and 9 minutes. This is the 41st member of Lunar Saros 127. The previous event is the September 1978 lunar