The Far Side of the Moon

The far side of the Moon is not visible from Earth. The reason for this is that the Moon's rotation period and its orbit around Earth are both equal to its own orbital period, so it always shows only one face to our planet. This phenomenon has been known since 1959 after several probes were sent by astronauts to explore outer space.

Due to tidal locking, the same side of the moon faces towards earth at all times, but if you were standing on a certain spot on earth you would be able to see about 59% of the surface!

Even though we cannot see what happens on this mysterious part of our closest neighbor in space there are still countless theories as well as discoveries being made about why exactly this occurs. Who knows? Maybe alien life exists on this side of the moon and we just can't see it...

The half-Earth model, also known as the crescent Earth or partial Earth hypothesis, posits that the Moon's near side is fully visible from any location on Earth (ignoring atmospheric refraction effects), but the far side is not. Therefore only 59% of its surface is visible from Earth.

According to the crescent Earth model, for an observer on Earth the Moon's phase cycle begins with its waxing crescent. The first quarter occurs when it appears completely lit from the perspective of the Sun but is then viewed with the full (waxing) disk of Earth visible; this is sometimes called "first-quarter Moon", though that term properly applies only to a half-moon (first quarter in both senses).

The Moon here appears dimly lit because most of its face is indeed fully shadowed (in direct sunlight), and only the back rim is lightened by sunlight refracted through Earth's atmosphere.

As it progresses into its first quarter, the lunar crescent becomes increasingly larger, while the Earth's shadow diminishes from being completely blocking the sun to covering a smaller area on the Moon and therefore appearing proportionately darker.

The term waxing gibbous applies to the Moon when it is more than a semicircle and less than full, such as during its first and third quarter phases.

During this phase, which lasts up to nearly 14 days, half of the visible surface of the Moon is dark (although in early visibility charts, that area was shaded with varying gray tones) while the other half is lit; it looks like a thinning crescent moon.

Although you can easily tell that there are two distinct hemispheres between which we never see direct sunlight, both get illuminated by indirect light: the side facing the sun is lit, while the far side gets light from Earth.

Summary: A short article showing what our missions to space have taught us about this mysterious region of outer space and why we can only see part of it from earth! We're still learning and discovering things every day about places in outer space so who knows maybe one day we'll get a chance to discover more about what's on this other side! Until then be a open minded person 😜.