It's a surprising fact but, despite over 50 years of Moon probes and manned flights, there has never been any video shot of the far side of the Moon, often erroneously called the 'dark side.' that is, until now (see the video here) and NASA's twin GRAIL probes, which began their multi-faceted mission at he start of the year.
For astronomers, the new videos will offer unprecedented views of the side of the Moon that is perpetually turned away from Earth. Why is this? Thanks to timing and gravity, the Moon's rotational period is the same as its orbital period. End result: from Earth, we only see one side of the Moon. For this reason, this never-before seen side of the Moon was labeled in pop culture as the 'dark side,' never mind the fact that it gets sunlight, too.
It was in 1959 that humans finally got a look at the far side of the Moon. Just 2 years after launching basketball-sized Sputnik into orbit, the Russians sent a probe, Luna 3, toward the Moon with the goal of orbiting and transmitting back to Earth the first ever images of the far side which, up until that point, had been great fodder for science fiction writers thanks to the fact that no one had the slightest idea of what was over there. Yes,. While scientists considered lunar civilizations unlikely, they had no definitive proof that they didn't exist, either.
Well, Luna 3 put to rest all of the wild speculation concerning the far side of the Moon and its potential inhabitants after it snapped the first images of the far side, covering about 70% of the Moon's opposite face. Instead, a new mystery emerged: the far side lacks the dark maria ('seas' in Latin) that populate the Earth-facing side. Why is that? In addition, the far side was far more heavily cratered, too, another natural mystery for real scientists.
However, science would soon take a backseat to exploration after President Kennedy declared in 1961 that, by the end of the decade, Americans would land on the Moon. with the nation focused on manned spaceflight, science became a secondary concern through the Apollo Program. By the time Apollo ended, NASA astronauts had brought back hundreds of pounds of Moon rocks, enough, it must have seemed to NASA, to keep their scientists busy for awhile. End result: interest in the Moon was lost until the early 2000s and President Bush's desire to revive manned lunar exploration.
Now, while Bush's plans to return to the Moon have been scrapped by the Obama Administration, the probes whose design was began under Bush have not been canceled and are still doing their work, GRAIL among them.
Now, as GRAIL only begins its 1-year mission, one can only wonder what else they will discover about our closest cosmic neighbor.
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