What is the Dark Side Of The Moon
Answers
Explanation:
Our moon wasn't born this way. Astronomers think that, like many natural satellites, it began its life spinning at a very different rate. (In the case of our moon, astronomers think it once whirled faster about its axis.) But over time, gravity from our planet exerted torque on bulges in the lunar surface, forcing its rotation into synchronization with its orbital period. This phenomenon is actually quite common: Many of Saturn and Jupiter's moons are tidally locked with their parent planet.
Tidal locking is why we had no idea what the moon's far side looked like until 1959, when the Soviet space probe Luna 3 snapped the first photos of that crater-laden landscape. We've gotten several good looks at it since: In 1968, astronauts aboard NASA's Apollo 8 mission became the first people to gaze upon the moon's far side with their own eyes. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been mapping the entire lunar surface in high resolution since 2009. And in the first few days of 2019, China became the first country to perform a soft landing of a spacecraft and deploy a rover on the moon's eternally hidden face. China's Chang'e 4 lander and Jade Rabbit 2 rover will give humanity its first close look at that remote lunar landscape.