Far side of the Moon

Uncommon card · No. 79636

The far side of the Moon, also called the dark side of the Moon, is the hemisphere of the Moon that faces away from Earth; the opposite hemisphere being the near side. Due to tidal locking, the time it takes for the Moon to orbit the Earth once is equal to the time it takes for the Moon to rotate once, thus, the far side of the Moon never fully comes into view from Earth's surface. The far side has sometimes been called the "dark side of the Moon", where "dark" means "unseen" instead of "unilluminated". There is however a common misconception that the dark side of the Moon is so-called because it never receives light, when each location on the Moon experiences two weeks of sunlight while the opposite location experiences night. The far side is actually more reflective than the near side, as it lacks the large areas of darker maria surface. About 18% of the far side is occasionally visible from Earth due to oscillation and to libration. The remaining 82% remained unobserved until 1959,...

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