South pole of the far side of the moon as seen from the GRAIL
mission’s Ebb spacecraft.
Just as the
lunar new year dawns, NASA probes have brought us video
of a the mythical far side of the moon, a sight never seen
from Earth.
The pockmarked orb is seen via a new item called a
MoonKAM that is helping Earthbound students take photos as
part of an educational project, according to NASA. The two
GRAIL probes (GRAIL sands for Gravity Recovery and
Interior Laboratory, according to NASA, and consists of two
identical spacecraft dubbed Ebb and Flow and equipped with
cameras) were launched in September 2011 and arrived within
shooting distance of the moon around New Year’s. This video
was shot on January 19, NASA said in a statement.
The moon is subject to a phenomenon called “tidal lock,”
spinning at a rate that keeps just one side turned toward
Earth at all times. Although photographs of what is known as
the so-called dark side of the moon have been taken, this is
the first-ever video. As the detailed analysis shows, the
shot taken from the north to south poles notes the sight,
with the north pole visible at the top of the screen as the
probe flies toward the south pole, NASA’s statement said. On
the lower third of the moon can be seen the Mare Orientale,
a 560-mile-wide impact basin that straddles the border
between seen and unseen.
At the end of the clip we see the rugged terrain near the
south pole, with the 93-mile-wide Drygalski crater
distinguished by the star-shaped formation in its center.
“The formation is a central peak, created many billions
of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact,” NASA said.
But enough chitchat. Read
NASA’s full description while you run and re-run this
ghostly cosmic image.