The Nasa LCROSS mission to discover how much water is on the Moon has crashed into the surface of the satellite, causing a plume of rock and dust that was viewed live by millions worldwide.

At 12:31pm British time an empty rocket plunged into the Moon's south pole at 1.6 miles per second. A probe followed close behind, flying through the six-mile-high shower of debris kicked up by the impact, before crashing into the surface itself four minutes later