Thursday 26 October 2023

Today Is...First View Of Moon's Far Side

The idea that the Moon spins does seem a bit confusing, especially as we only ever see the one side but it is because it only shows us the one face that shows  that it is actually rotating. 
We don’t see the far side because the moon is tidally locked to the Earth so it rotates at the same speed that it rotates around the Earth, completing one full rotation on its axis in the time it takes to orbit the Earth so the same side is always turned toward us and it wasn't until 1959 and the Soviet Luna 3 that we first saw photographs what the far side looked like.
The grainy images showed that it was the complete opposite to the smooth near side and was rugged with a multitude of impact craters and few flat and dark 'seas' but rather than being dark as in receiving little sunlight, it was bathed in as much sunlight as the near side but the near side benefits from additional Earth-shine which is light reflected onto it from the Earth.
Until recently all crewed and uncrewed soft landings had taken place on the near side of the Moon until 3 January 2019 when the Chinese Chang'e 4 spacecraft made the first landing on the far side and deployed a Lunar Rover to scoot around the far side lunar surface.
It hasn't found anything of note yet, not even a NAZI Space Station which some people had said they had built over there, but mankind's adventures in Outer Space and our nearest neighbour continues.

No comments: