A Nasa spacecraft in orbit around the moon has sent back five dozen new images of the lunar surface including a view of the far side with Earth in the distance.

Fourth-graders from an elementary school in the US state of Montana directed the spacecraft to snap pictures as part of a project headed by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

The images were returned earlier this week.

Twin Nasa probes entered lunar orbit over the New Year's weekend on a mission to study the gravity field.

During non-critical parts of the mission, select students get to choose camera targets.

The Montana students got their role for winning a Nasa-sponsored contest that renamed the craft Ebb and Flow.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.