The far side of the Moon has no secrets for astronomers anymore. Thanks to the Japanese probe SELENE (Kayuga), the most complete topographic map of our satellite has just been completed, published in the journal Science .
On the side that the Moon always shows us, the plains covered by dark volcanic rock predominate, while on the hidden side the orography is more complex, with craters and high peaks. To try to explain these differences, the SELENE spacecraft is orbiting the Moon and probing it with various instruments, including a laser altimeter (LALT) that has made it possible to obtain the lunar topographic map with the highest resolution to date (100-kilometer scales).
From the images, the researchers have concluded that the lunar crust is relatively rigid compared to that of the Earth, especially on its far side, which implies that there is hardly any water or other components that can evaporate.
