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Ranger 7 was designed to acquire images of the moon before impacting the surface, using six television cameras. The spacecraft was launched on July 28, 1964 and captured this image of the moon on July 31, about 15 minutes before impact, from an altitude of 1,063 miles. The area shown is about 250 miles wide. The craters at the right are round, but appear distorted because of the low angle and curvature of the moon. Ranger 7 was very successful, returning over 4,300 pictures to Earth.

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