HD Earth from 68,000 miles

The Kaguya spacecraft, aka Selene, was launched September 14 by the Japanese Space Agency and reached lunar orbit Thursday. This is the first of many planned trips to the moon by a new cast of space explorers.

China is expected to launch its first lunar exploration satellite later this month; India has plans for a moon launch in April 2008; the next U.S. moon mission is slated for 2008; and Russia could be flying private citizens around the moon and back as early as 2009. All of those countries are making plans to land a spacecraft on the moon by 2012--with astronauts and cosmonauts to follow soon after. Reports say Germany is also interested in joining the space community. Meanwhile, Google is offering $30 million to encourage private teams to land a rover on the moon by December 2012.

JAXA and the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation released the furthest high-definition image of the earth (left)--from about 68,000 miles away. It was taken by the Kaguya explorer from the halfway point of its journey to the moon.

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Captions by CNET News.com's Andy Smith