Most people call it the "Dark Side." It isn't dark. It gets plenty of sunlight, just never at the same time we're looking at it from Earth. Because of tidal locking, the Moon shows us the same face, day after day, century after century. For most of human history, what lay on the other side was a total mystery, a blank canvas for science fiction writers and dreamers. Then came 1959.
The Soviet Union’s Luna 3 probe swung around that hidden hemisphere and snapped the first-ever pictures of far side of moon, and honestly? They were grainy, noisy, and kind of a mess. But they changed everything. They showed a world that looked nothing like the one we see in the night sky. No vast, smooth "seas" of basalt. Just a battered, mountainous wasteland of craters.
The Day the Mystery Vanished
Imagine being a scientist in the 1950s. You've spent your life staring at the Lunar nearside. You know every crater by name—Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler. Then, a tiny metal ball from Earth transmits twenty-nine grainy frames across the void. These first pictures of far side of moon covered about 70 percent of the hidden surface.
It was a shock.
The "Man in the Moon" face we recognize is created by maria, those large, dark volcanic plains. On the far side, those are almost entirely missing. It's just rugged highland terrain. It looks more like a golf ball that’s been through a blender than the poetic orb we see from our backyards. Why the difference? Scientists are still arguing about it. Some think the Earth's heat, back when the Moon was a molten blob, kept the nearside's crust thinner, allowing lava to seep out and create those smooth plains. The far side, facing the cold of space, cooled faster and grew a thick, armor-like crust.
Modern High-Def: From Luna 3 to LRO
Fast forward to today. We aren't squinting at fuzzy TV signals anymore. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been orbiting since 2009, mapping the surface with terrifying precision. If you look at modern pictures of far side of moon from the LRO, you can see individual boulders. You can see the tracks left by rovers.
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One of the most striking features you'll spot in these high-res images is the South Pole-Aitken basin. It’s one of the largest, deepest, and oldest known impact craters in the entire solar system. It’s a massive, dark bruise on the bottom of the far side, nearly 2,500 kilometers wide. If you stood in the middle of it, you wouldn't even know you were in a crater because the "walls" would be far beyond the horizon. It’s a goldmine for geologists because the impact was so deep it likely peeled back the crust to reveal the Moon's mantle.
China’s Game-Changing Perspective
For decades, we only had photos from orbit. No one had actually touched the far side. That changed in January 2019 when China’s Chang’e 4 mission pulled off a soft landing in the Von Kármán crater.
Landing there is a nightmare. Since the Moon blocks all direct radio signals to Earth, the CNSA (China National Space Administration) had to park a relay satellite, Queqiao, in a specific orbit just to "see" around the corner. The photos sent back by the Yutu-2 rover were groundbreaking. They gave us a "boots on the ground" look at the far side’s soil—it’s a different color, a bit more yellowish-gray than what the Apollo astronauts walked on.
These pictures of far side of moon aren't just for show. They tell us about the early solar system's "Late Heavy Bombardment" period. Since the far side doesn't have those lava flows (maria) to pave over the old scars, it’s like a fossilized record of every space rock that has screamed through our neighborhood for the last four billion years.
Debunking the "Alien Base" Nonsense
We have to talk about it. If you spend five minutes on certain corners of the internet, you'll find people claiming these pictures show alien monoliths, glass towers, or secret Nazi bases.
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It’s pareidolia. Pure and simple.
Our brains are hardwired to find patterns. When we see a weirdly shaped rock at a low sun angle, we think "pyramid." Remember the "Moon Hut" from 2021? The Yutu-2 rover spotted a cube-shaped object on the horizon. People went nuts. Headlines screamed about "mystery houses." Then the rover drove closer. It was a rock. A small, jagged rock that happened to look square from a mile away.
Professional imagery from missions like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-2 provides a global map of the far side. There are no cities. No lights. Just a lot of dust and very old holes in the ground.
Why We Keep Taking Pictures
You might think we’ve seen enough. We haven't.
The far side is the quietest place in the "local" universe. Because the bulk of the Moon blocks all the "radio noise" from Earth—cell phones, TV stations, radar—it’s the perfect spot for a radio telescope. Imagine seeing the first stars forming after the Big Bang without any interference.
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This is why agencies are so obsessed with high-resolution mapping. We need to find the best spots for these future observatories. We're also looking for water ice. The deep, shadowed craters at the poles (like Shackleton) never see the sun. They're cold traps. If there's ice there, we can turn it into oxygen and rocket fuel.
Seeing It for Yourself
You can't see the far side with a backyard telescope. You just can't. But you can explore it better than almost any generation before you.
NASA’s QuickMap tool is basically Google Earth for the Moon. You can fly over the far side, zoom into the Tsiolkovskiy crater—which actually does have a rare dark lava floor and a central peak—and see the terrain in 3D.
If you're looking for the most iconic, high-quality pictures of far side of moon, check out the "Earthrise" style shots taken by the Apollo 8 crew or the more recent imagery from the Artemis I mission’s Orion capsule. Seeing the tiny, blue Earth hanging behind the massive, scarred far side really puts things in perspective. It’s lonely out there.
How to Evaluate Moon Photos Like a Pro
- Check the Source: Real images come from NASA, CNSA, ESA, ISRO, or JAXA. If it's a blurry TikTok video with "unclassified" in the title, it’s probably a render.
- Look for Sun Angle: Long shadows make small bumps look like giant towers. Always look for the light source.
- Remember the Scale: Without trees or buildings, it's impossible to tell if a crater is the size of a bathtub or the size of Rhode Island.
- Compare Near and Far: The lack of large dark "seas" is the easiest way to tell you're looking at a far-side image.
The far side isn't a place of mystery anymore, but it's still a place of discovery. Every new photo helps us understand why the Earth-Moon system is so lopsided and what happened during the violent birth of our planet.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Visit NASA’s LRO Gallery: Head to the official LROC website to browse the most detailed lunar map ever created. You can search for specific coordinates and download raw data.
- Use Moon Trek: Explore the NASA Solar System Treks portal. It's a browser-based tool that lets you layer different types of data (gravity, minerals, topography) over photos of the far side.
- Track Upcoming Missions: Keep an eye on the Artemis program. Future missions plan to send humans or more advanced rovers to the lunar south pole, which will provide the most high-definition imagery in human history.