When we refer to the dark side of the Moon we are talking about the hemisphere of our satellite that is not observable from Earth. This is because, as the Moon takes to complete its movement around our planet as well as to rotate on itself, we always see the same face. However, the name “dark side” is not entirely correct, since obviously the sunlight also falls on this area at some point of the day.
This invisible face of our satellite has always been the subject of the most varied conjectures, and lovers of paranormal phenomena find a juicy field of speculation on the dark side of the Moon. But science and space research have revealed us what the real characteristics of this enigmatic place are.
In 2012, thanks to new maps produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe, hitherto unknown features of regions at the north and north poles were discovered. south of the Moon, which are in perpetual darkness . This was possible because LAMP used a method to make the invisible visible in these permanently shadowed areas.
The generated maps revealed that the lunar poles are darker in the far ultraviolet wavelengths and redder than the nearby surfaces that receive sunlight. The darker regions indicate high surface porosity, typical of spongy soils, while that the redness suggests the presence of ice water on the surface . “Our findings suggest that there could be up to 2 percent ice water in some permanently shaded lunar soils,” explained Randy Gladstone, a co-author of the study.
The LAMP team estimates that the loss of ice water is about 16 times slower than previously believed. Furthermore, the accumulation of water in the form of ice is highly dependent on local conditions such as temperature or recent geological and thermal cycles.
It was said that the LRO’s findings could be used to inform future development of a permanent lunar base . In addition, the researchers assured that the shadowed lunar regions have turned out to be one of the most exotic places in the solar system , which will be worth exploring. The discovery of ice water and other resources in the area could also reduce the need to transport Earth’s resources to a polar lunar base.
The composition of the dark side
Two years later, a work published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters yielded new data on the composition of the far side of the Moon. Apparently, during the formation of our satellite there were differences in temperature between both sides that made the thickness of the lunar crust also different.
The development of increasingly powerful telescopes and cameras is allowing scientists to obtain highly accurate images of many corners of the universe. In the case of the dark side of the Moon, it has rained a lot since the first photographs taken in 1959 by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3. In 2015, NASA managed to capture some impressive images thanks to the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) project , which we remember in the following video:
