The Moon as you have never seen and will never see. The Moon is in synchronous rotation: it rotates about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. This results in it nearly always keeping the same face turned towards the Earth. The Moon used to rotate at a faster rate, but early in its history, its rotation slowed and became tidally locked in this orientation as a result of frictional effects associated with tidal deformations caused by the Earth. The side of the Moon that faces Earth is called the near side, and the opposite side the far side. The far side is often called the "dark side", but in fact, it is illuminated as often as the near side: once per lunar day, during the new moon phase we observe on Earth when the near side is dark. (Wikipedia)
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 02:43:56 +0000
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