Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Dark Side of the Moon

Yes, again with the deceiving titles! This time I don't mean the famous Pink Floyd album but the actual dark side of the moon - the far side.
We are permanently destined to watch the near side of the Moon because the Moon rotates about its spin axis at the same rate that the Moon orbits the Earth (this is actually called synchronous rotation or tidal locking).
In my opinion, the near side of the moon is way more awesome than the far side. The dark side truly looks dark with all the craters - but the near side has all the trails and they look awesome and even awesomer when observed with telescopes. So we're quite lucky that we got "cooler" side. But those who prefer craters will probably like the dark side more!


Picture taken from Apollo 16






















APOD - 1998 astronomy picture of the day with the above image
Wiki Moon - Article of the dark side of the Moon
Wiki Floyd - Article of The Dark Side of the Moon

6 comments:

  1. Electric AddictMarch 3, 2011 at 6:20 AM

    the moon side that faces the earth looks like it has dinosaur to me lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. akraterMarch 3, 2011 at 3:55 PM

    Huh, I didn't think it was so full of craters.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Patti D.March 4, 2011 at 4:05 AM

    I've never though about that!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 4, 2011 at 6:26 AM

    I like the craters

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymouseMarch 4, 2011 at 7:34 AM

    makes sense that the far side would have more craters since it would be the side that things would slam into. i never thought about it before though. pretty cool.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMarch 30, 2011 at 6:35 AM

    It kind of reminds me of an Irish Aran Sweater with a Honeycomb Design.

    ReplyDelete

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