The flash nobody saw when Nasa's £49million 'bomb' crashed into the Moon in a quest to discover water

It was billed as one of the most ambitious missions in the history of space exploration - two spacecraft smashing into the surface of Moon and creating a six-mile high cloud of dust visible from telescopes on the Earth.

Instead there was disappointment for millions as live pictures relayed back from the Moon showed no sign of an impact.

Now, however, Nasa has released a photograph showing the flash of light as its massive Centaur rocket struck the lunar surface.

No wonder it was hard to spot - it looks like a pinprick made by the proverbial needle in a haystack.

But an enlargement reveals much more - the shapes of craters on the pitted lunar landscape as a brilliant blaze of light casts sudden new shadows. (Daily Mail)