Most people call it the "dark side." It isn't dark. Not even a little bit. It gets just as much sunlight as the face we see from Earth, but because the Moon is tidally locked to us, that mysterious back half stayed hidden for all of human history until we finally sent cameras up there. When the first images of the far side of the Moon started trickling back to Earth in 1959, scientists were honestly shocked. They expected more of the same—big, smooth lava plains like the "Man in the Moon." Instead, they found a battered, cratered wasteland that looks almost nothing like the side we know.
It's weird.
The discrepancy between the two hemispheres is one of the biggest headaches in lunar science. We’re talking about a world that looks like it was split down the middle and glued back together with pieces from two different puzzles.
The Grainy Soviet Photos That Changed Everything
In October 1959, the Soviet Union's Luna 3 probe swung around the back of the Moon. It was a primitive piece of tech by today's standards. It used a camera system that literally developed photographic film on board, dried it, and then scanned it with a light beam to transmit the data back via radio waves. It sounds like something out of a steampunk novel.
When those first blurry, static-filled images of the far side of the Moon appeared, the world saw something totally unexpected. The "maria"—those dark, basaltic plains that make up the "seas" on the near side—were almost entirely missing. On the side facing Earth, these dark spots cover about 31% of the surface. On the far side? Only about 1%. It’s just mountains and craters. Thousands of them. It looks like a golf ball that’s been through a war zone.
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Why Does It Look So Different?
For decades, we didn't really have a good answer for why the two sides were so mismatched. Some researchers, like those at Penn State, have suggested it comes down to how the Moon cooled. Because the Moon was much closer to a molten, hot Earth billions of years ago, the side facing us stayed hot. The far side cooled faster. This led to a much thicker crust on the back. When asteroids hit the near side, they punched through the thin crust and let lava bleed out, creating those smooth dark plains. On the far side, the crust was too thick. The asteroids just left dents.
But then there's the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
This is one of the largest, deepest, and oldest impact craters in the entire solar system. You can see it in modern high-resolution images of the far side of the Moon as a massive, darkish bruise near the bottom. It’s about 2,500 kilometers wide. If you put it on Earth, it would stretch from London to Athens.
The Digital Age: LRO and Chang'e 4
Fast forward to the 2000s. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been circling the Moon since 2009, and it has mapped the entire surface in terrifyingly high detail. We have 3D maps now. We can see boulders the size of a car.
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Then, in 2019, China did something no one else had done: they landed on it. The Chang'e 4 mission, along with its rover Yutu-2, touched down in the Von Kármán crater. Because the Moon blocks radio signals, China had to park a relay satellite called Queqiao in a specific spot in space just to talk to the rover. The images of the far side of the Moon from the surface are eerie. The "soil" (regolith) is a weird, yellowish-grey, and the horizon is jagged with crater rims. It feels way more lonely than the Apollo landing sites.
Debunking the Myths
People love a good conspiracy. If you spend five minutes on YouTube, you’ll find folks claiming that images of the far side of the Moon show alien bases, glass towers, or even a Nazi moon base.
Let's be real.
We have photographed the entire surface at a resolution of about 50 centimeters per pixel. If there was a discarded soda can back there, we’d probably see the glint. What people often point to as "structures" are usually just digital artifacts or "pareidolia"—our brains trying to find shapes in random rocks. Those "tower" photos from the 1960s? Those were just sun-glints on the camera lens or scratches on the film.
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The Future of Lunar Photography
The next big jump is happening right now with the Artemis program. We aren't just looking for pretty pictures anymore; we are looking for ice. Deep inside the craters at the lunar south pole—where the sun never shines—there is water ice.
Future images of the far side of the Moon won't just be from orbit. We are going to see live, high-definition video from the surface as astronauts explore the lunar highlands. It's going to look different from the Apollo footage. The lighting is harsher, the terrain is rougher, and the tech is lightyears ahead.
How to Explore the Far Side Yourself
You don't need a telescope to see the far side (mostly because you can't see it from Earth anyway). But you can access the same data the pros use.
- QuickMap by Applied Coherent Technology: This is basically Google Earth for the Moon. You can toggle between 3D views, gravity maps, and even temperature data.
- LROC Image Search: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera site lets you browse through millions of raw images. It’s addictive. You can zoom into specific craters and see the tracks left by the Yutu-2 rover.
- Clementine Mission Archives: For a more "retro" feel, look at the multispectral data from the 90s. It shows the mineral composition of the far side in neon colors.
The far side isn't a land of mystery anymore, but it is a land of history. Every crater is a record of a hit the Earth avoided. By looking at these images, we aren't just seeing a dead rock; we're looking at the shield that's been protecting our planet for four billion years.
Check the LROC QuickMap gallery first if you want the highest resolution. It’s updated constantly. Search for "Schrödinger Crater" to see one of the most visually stunning geologically complex spots on the entire lunar surface.