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| NASA PHOTO |
NEWSLINE PAPER,- The moon doesn't seem to rotate at all so that we only see the same side of the Moon.
What about the other side of the moon? Why don't we ever see the side of the moon?
There's a special reason why only one side is visible from Earth.
Citing Science ABC, this is because the Moon takes the same time to rotate around the Earth compared to the time it takes to spin on its axis.
So for every degree of rotation on its orbit, the Moon rotates with the same number on its axis so that it makes only one side visible.
The moon is also locked in its retreat, making the Earth's natural satellite show only one side.
According to Live Science, the lockdown of the retreat is due to gravitational traction between two celestial objects.
And when the moon and the earth are drawn, they are distorted and stretched toward each other.
Another thing that makes the Moon only visible on one side is that the Moon also slows down the Earth's rotation.
Half a billion years ago, Robert Tyler, a marine physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said the Earth might have 21 hours a day.
Although we can't see the moon's side directly from Earth, the spacecraft managed to photograph it and reveal what the region looks like.
The Soviet space shuttle Luna 3 took the first picture of the far side of the Moon in 1959.
Since then, several other missions have taken photographs of the moon's far side, including NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and China's Chang'e 4, the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon.
The images show that the far side of the Moon is covered with craters and has fewer large black spots – called maria, compared to the near side that we can see all this time from Earth.
Source : Live Science, Science ABC