{"id":16203,"date":"2019-04-28T22:43:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T22:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=16203"},"modified":"2019-04-30T09:57:07","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T09:57:07","slug":"whats-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/whats-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s on the far side of the Moon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wayne Schlingman<\/a>, The Ohio State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Looking up at the silvery orb of the Moon, you might recognize familiar shadows and shapes on its face from one night to the next. You see the same view of the Moon our early ancestors did as it lighted their way after sundown.<\/p>\n

Only one side of the spherical Moon is ever visible from Earth \u2013 it wasn\u2019t until 1959 when the Soviet Spacecraft Luna 3<\/a> orbited the Moon and sent pictures home that human beings were able to see the \u201cfar side\u201d of the Moon for the first time.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Comparison of humanity\u2019s first glimpse of the lunar far side and the same view thanks to LRO data 50 years later.<\/span>
\n NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A phenomenon called tidal locking<\/a> is responsible for the consistent view. The Earth and its Moon are in close proximity and thus exert significant gravitational forces on each other. These tidal forces slow the rotations of both bodies. They locked the Moon\u2019s rotation in sync with its orbital period relatively soon after it formed \u2013 as a product of a collision between a Mars-sized object and the proto-Earth, 100 million years after the solar system coalesced.<\/p>\n

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