THE HIDDEN FACE – Exploring the far side of moon

The moon has been our neighbour for ages, explorations are being conducted for decades. Every question invariably leads to a remarkable discovery, vice versa every discovery leads to a question. Planetary observers doubted the appearance of the moon since they were able to see only the near side of the moon every time, have you ever noticed it? If not peep through your window to instantly start observing!

Video Credits: SciShow Space

This profound mystery remained unsolved till the soviets properly captured the first iconic photo by their Luna 3 space probe. But this didn’t put a full stop to the eternal quest! Still several questions were raised and numerous concepts were required to explain them. Willingly let’s take a trip around those fundamental questions and key concepts...

The first iconic photo of the moon's far side by their Luna 3 space probe, Source: Wikipedia

What makes the other half of the moon hidden from earth?

According to space science any object naturally influenced by gravity would rotate itself and the influencing body in an orbit around it. This is the fundamental law behind the orbit of planets around the sun and moon around the planets. Let’s understand the concept behind the lock between earth and the moon, it's called.

The Tidal Lock:

Initially, the moon was believed to rotate at a greater momentum than now, but the tidal waves of earth influenced the moon’s rotation at a greater level to slow down and brought it into shape. This caused the near side of the moon to confront towards earth all time. By now a question may be prompted in your mind that if only near side is facing earth the moon must not be rotating at all? To clear this, we need to understand that if the moon stops rotating around its axis the far side would be visible at half of its orbit, but it’s not so happening. This means it is rotating, but if it rotates more than once the far side would be visible but that too is not happening. This concludes that moon rotates once around its own axis during its solitary orbit around the earth.

Let’s get into the rotational concepts to grasp this concept clearly.

	EARTH	MOON
Rotation Period	23hours 56minutes 4.100seconds	27.321661 days
Orbital Period	365.2563636004 days	27.321661 days

Rotation period - Time typically taken to complete one revolution around its own axis

Orbit period – Time borne to complete orbit around other object

Since the rotational and orbital period of the moon is the same, the moon rotates one time around itself while completing an orbit around earth.

Distributed Shine:

The far side is also known as the dark side. This doesn’t mean that the far part does not get the sunshine (Dark-unknown). The sunshine is distributed amongst the sides, near and far side receives equal shares in the sunshine during their period of rotation. The near side of the moon also gets the benefit of reflected rays from Earth which the far side doesn’t.

A Companion Within:

The crust of the far side comprise 30% thicker than that of the near side, which undoubtedly has to be similar. Answering this key question typically revealed a plausible hypothesis about the collapsed companion. The moon was believed to have a smaller companion which shared its orbit, with time the companion got nearer and nearer and collapsed with its larger companion who made the crust of far side increase by 30%.

Video Credits: SpaceRip

SpaceRip

Cratered Surface:

The far side was first seen directly by human eyes during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Astronaut William Anders enthusiastically described the magnificent view:

“The backside looks like a sand pile my kids have played in for some time. It's all beat up, no definition, just many bumps and holes.”

The far side of the moon occupies more craters compared to the near side but this possesses a apparent reason behind it.Both Earth and Moon have been hit by asteroids during their early ages of birth. As the near side was facing earth it had little impacts by them, but the far side was unsafe as the near side. It suffered many impacts which resulted in crater formation. The craters formed in Earth were faded away by the weather, rain, wind, volcanic eruptions, tectonics, etc. Since moon has no atmosphere, this means no wind, no weather which can fade the craters so the craters remained as it is.

Image Credits: www.physik.uni-bielefeld.de

 

Do You Know ! 

"Any dent made on the moon’s surface is going to stay there for ages. The dusty footsteps of astronauts who once walked on the moon are still there today, and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon." 

Difficulties in communication:

Since the earth is permanently away from the far side, it causes difficulties in communication of the satellites. This caused risk in conducting missions on the far side of the moon. 

Till date there has been no manned mission conducted on the far side of the moon. China has sent a rover Chang’e-4 to the far side of the moon in 2019, which used an intermediate satellite for communication stationed at the Lagrange point (this is the point where the combined gravitational force of earth and the moon equals the centrifugal force felt by a smaller third body, a satellite, can be parked at this point).

Even a space observatory is planned to be built on the far side of the moon. Every new finding renders a satisfaction, but the primary aim of our quest represent the search of life. We search none other than ourselves out there in space, it’s the quest of mankind which never ends.

“Somewhere, Something Incredible is waiting to be known”

-Carl Sagan