If you close your eyes and think about the far side of the moon, you probably imagine a pitch-black, frozen void where Pink Floyd records play on a loop. It’s a common vibe. We’ve been told for decades that there is a "dark side" that never sees the sun, a place of permanent shadow and mystery.
Here’s the thing: it’s not actually dark.
Well, it is half the time, just like the side we see from Earth. The moon is tidally locked to us, which is a fancy way of saying it rotates on its axis at the exact same speed it orbits our planet. Because of this gravitational dance, we only ever see one face. But as the moon moves around Earth, the sun hits every single square inch of that lunar surface at some point. When we have a New Moon here on Earth—meaning the side facing us is dark—the far side is actually bathed in blindingly bright sunlight.
The Far Side of the Moon vs. The Dark Side
We really need to stop calling it the "dark side." Astronomers usually prefer "far side" because it’s more accurate. If you were standing in the middle of the Von Kármán crater on the far side, you’d experience a day-night cycle that lasts about 29.5 Earth days. You’d get roughly two weeks of sun followed by two weeks of night.
The difference between the two hemispheres is honestly jarring. When the Soviet Luna 3 probe snapped the first grainy photos of the far side in 1959, scientists were floored. They expected it to look like the side we know—full of those big, dark blotches called "maria" (ancient lava plains). Instead, the far side is a rugged, crater-scarred highland. It looks like a completely different world. It’s thicker, tougher, and significantly more beat up by asteroid impacts.
Why the difference? It’s one of the biggest debates in lunar science. Some researchers, like those at Penn State, suggest that when the moon was forming, the Earth was still incredibly hot. Since the near side was constantly facing that radiant heat, it stayed molten longer, while the far side cooled down and formed a much thicker crust. Think of it like a loaf of bread where one side was too close to the heating element.
China’s Chang’e 4 and the First Soft Landing
For a long time, we only saw the far side from orbit. NASA’s Apollo astronauts saw it, but they never landed there. It was too risky. Because the bulk of the moon sits between the far side and Earth, you can't send a direct radio signal home. You're basically in a total communications blackout.
That changed in January 2019. China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) pulled off something incredible with the Chang’e 4 mission. They landed a rover called Yutu-2 in the South Pole-Aitken basin. To solve the "no signal" problem, they had to park a relay satellite called Queqiao in a specific spot in space (the L2 Lagrange point) where it could "see" both the rover and the Earth at the same time.
Yutu-2 has been a bit of a rockstar. It’s still up there, trekking across the lunar regolith. It found weird "gel-like" substances that turned out to be impact melt glass—basically glass formed by the sheer heat of a meteorite hitting the ground. It also discovered that the soil on the far side is much more porous and "crunchy" than the stuff Neil Armstrong walked on.
The South Pole-Aitken Basin: A Giant Solar System Mystery
The far side is home to the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin. This thing is massive. It’s about 2,500 kilometers wide and 13 kilometers deep. It is one of the largest, deepest, and oldest known impact craters in the entire solar system.
Basically, a long time ago, something huge slammed into the moon and nearly cracked it open.
This crater is a goldmine for geologists. Because the impact was so deep, it likely excavated material from the moon’s mantle—the layer beneath the crust. By studying the SPA basin, we aren’t just looking at the surface; we’re looking into the moon’s guts. There’s also evidence of massive underground metal deposits there. Some scientists think it’s the remains of the actual iron-nickel asteroid that caused the crater, buried hundreds of miles down.
Why Radio Astronomers Are Obsessed With the Far Side
If you’re a radio astronomer, the far side of the moon is the quietest place in the universe.
Earth is loud. We are constantly screaming into the void with cell phone signals, Wi-Fi, radio stations, and satellite transmissions. All that "noise" makes it really hard to hear the incredibly faint signals from the early universe—the stuff from the "Dark Ages" right after the Big Bang.
The moon acts as a giant, 2,000-mile-thick shield. It blocks out all the electronic chatter from Earth. Setting up a radio telescope on the far side would allow us to see things we literally cannot detect from anywhere else. NASA is currently looking into concepts like the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Explorer (LuSEE-Night), which would try to catch these ancient signals during the freezing lunar night.
Water Ice and the Future of Space Travel
The far side isn't just for science; it’s for survival.
Near the lunar South Pole, there are "permanently shadowed regions" (PSRs). Because the sun hits the poles at such a low angle, the bottoms of some deep craters haven't seen sunlight in billions of years. They are some of the coldest places in the solar system, even colder than the surface of Pluto.
In these shadows, we’ve found water ice.
This is the "new gold rush." If you have ice, you have water to drink. You can split that water into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for rocket fuel. This is why everyone—NASA with the Artemis program, China, India, and even private companies—is racing to the lunar South Pole. The far side is essentially the gas station for the rest of the solar system. If we can mine that ice, we don't have to haul heavy water up from Earth’s deep gravity well. It changes the math of going to Mars forever.
The Human Element: Isolation and Silence
When Michael Collins orbited the moon alone during Apollo 11, he was the most isolated human being in history. Every time his Command Module dipped behind the far side, he lost contact with Houston. He was truly alone in the dark.
He wrote about it in his memoir, Carrying the Fire. He didn't find it scary. He found it peaceful. He said, "I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it."
There’s something deeply human about that. In a world where we are constantly "connected" and pinged by notifications, the far side represents the last true wilderness. It’s a place where you can't be reached.
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Debunking the Myths
We can't talk about the far side without addressing the weird stuff people say online. No, there are no alien bases. No, there are no Nazi moon colonies. We have high-resolution imagery of the entire surface from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). We can see boulders the size of a coffee table. If there were a "city" back there, we’d see the lights—or at least the shadows.
The "mystery" of the far side isn't about aliens; it's about physics and history. It's about why the moon is lopsided and what that tells us about how the Earth was formed.
How to Follow the Next Phase of Lunar Discovery
The next few years are going to be wild for lunar exploration. If you want to keep up with the real story of the far side, here’s how to stay informed:
- Track the Artemis Missions: NASA’s Artemis II and III missions will be the first time humans return to the lunar vicinity in over 50 years. Watch for the "Gateway" station updates, which will orbit the moon and provide a permanent staging ground for far-side missions.
- Monitor CNSA Updates: China is moving fast. Their Chang’e 6 mission recently successfully returned samples from the far side—the first time in history that’s ever happened. Reading the peer-reviewed papers coming out of those samples will rewrite textbooks.
- Check the LRO Gallery: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has a public gallery. You can literally browse high-def photos of the far side yourself. It’s better than any sci-fi movie.
- Learn the Phases: Next time there’s a "New Moon" and you can't see it in the sky, look up and realize that at that exact moment, the far side is experiencing high noon.
The far side of the moon is no longer a dark secret. It’s a map of our past and a bridge to our future. We’re finally starting to see it for what it actually is: a rugged, sun-drenched, and silent frontier waiting for us to arrive.