Photos: Japan probe approaches moon; who's next?

NASA wants all the help it can get for its return moon trip. Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize, which will award $20 million to the first team that can land a robotic rover on the moon, travel 500 meters, and send data and images back to Earth by December 2012.

Here is the crew that helped develop the Google Lunar X Prize (from left): Hollywood producer and X Prize Vice Chairman Robert K. Weiss, Google co-founder and X Prize trustee Larry Page, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Photo by Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com