Introduction: Moon always faces the same side towards earth, then what’s on the other side of the Moon, let’s explore this reality…
The Moon, the only natural satellite of the earth, has such prominence in the heavenly night sky that it has enamored everyone regardless of age, sex, race, etc. The Moon has always been used for reference in storytelling, poetry, culture and festivities. Poets have made several metaphors to depict purity in love. Our Moon looks so close to us but is actually a quarter the size of Earth at a distance of 384,400 km from theś Earth.
The amazing fact is that a day on the Moon lasts for as long as our month, as it turns on its axis every 27 days and about eight hours to complete one orbit, that’s also the time it takes to rotate on its own axis—so the Moon takes the same time to finish a rotation as well as a revolution. Thus, the same side of the Moon is always seen from the Earth. Only up to 59 % of the Moon’s surface can be viewed by us from Earth. Then what is in store on the other side, what does it look like? If the Moon did not rotate on its own axis, then the entire Moon could be visible to us from earth during the course of its orbit. This is termed as tidal locking. Want to find out more?
So the Moon always puts up its better side towards the Earth. The Moon is directly illuminated by the sun but indirectly receives some reflected sunlight from the surface of the Earth and what we get to see is the lunar hemisphere that always faces towards the Earth. The other side, or the dark side, so it is called, for it is the unknown side of the Moon, is full of terrain that is rugged, looks barren with a large number of craters. It has the largest crater in the solar system. The far side— South Pole, called the ‘Aitken Basin’ has the lowest elevation of the Moon and constitutes a thin crust. There are differences in surface elevations, thickness of the crust on both hemispheres.
The first picture of the far side of the Moon was obtained by the Russian Lunar 3 in the year 1959. Until this discovery, most parts of the Moon remained unobserved. The atlas of the far side of the Moon was first published by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1960, a discovery really amazing for us Earth dwellers, as we are so very accustomed to be watching our satellite, always by the side of Earth, every night, as it appears prominently on almost every night except, the moonless ones!There is no air on the Moon so there is no sound. No wind, no weather, and amazingly, all the footprints made by the astronauts who visited the moon, are likely to stay there forever until someone else cross walks over them! An Amazing fact!! Moon has regular cycle of phases, due to which historically, societies were able to plan many cultural festivals, weather, calendars, and its influence on art and mythology is not hidden from us. The Soviet Union’s lunar 2 was the first artificial object to reach the Moon, though between 1969 and 1972, US Apollo programs conducted human lunar missions. The lunar rocks collected from the Moon have helped in developing the detailed geological study of Moon’s history, origin, structure, etc.
Looking at the structure of the Moon, the constituents consist of distinct layers. Due to the chemical and physical behavior of different constituents, they separate when the denser material sinks to the center and lighter towards the surface. Thus, the Moon has a distinct crust, mantle (made up of rocks or ices, the largest part of the planetary body lying above the core and below the crust) and planetary core. Lunar crust contains elements such as calcium, oxygen, aluminum, iron magnesium, silicon and minor traces of titanium, thorium, potassium, uranium are also found. Like earthquakes on Earth, moonquakes also occur deep in the mantle of the Moon, 1000 km below the surface almost every month, due to the nature of its orbit.The Moon was formed some 4.5 billion years ago; soon after earth’s formation. It was formed out of the ejected elements or the debris that resulted due to the collision between the planet and another Mars sized planet called ‘Theia’. Our Moon thus formed, receded into the Earth’s orbit due to being in tidal interaction with our planet. In 2016, a published report on the analysis of lunar rocks suggested the direct hit possibility causing a complete mixing of elements from both the parent bodies. Though this hypothesis of giant impact leaves some unresolved queries raised by some scientists, you may want to search for those answers!
All manned and unmanned aircraft landings had taken place on the near side of the Moon. In 1968, the first crewed aircraft orbited the Moon making it possible to only then see the far side of the Moon from Apollo 8, the astronauts orbiting the Moon saw in reality, what it looked like. It took them almost three days to cover the distance to the Moon. But it was only recently, on Jan 3, 2019, for the first time in history, ‘Chang’e 4’, a robotic aircraft made a landing on the far side of the Moon.
Astronomers have confirmed that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. And there are astounding realities hidden in the universe, invaluable to scientific inquiry and for brilliant minds to explore. It’s an Amazing World! Would you like to find out more?
YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT!
If you find these readings and related studies interesting:
- You could opt for studies related with Cosmology where you make scientific study about the origin, properties, or evolution of Universe as a whole
- Astronomers or astrophysicists study the objects in the space including, galaxies, black holes, stars, planets
- Geochemistry is the study of the composition of Earth, rocks, minerals
