The Pull of the Far Side

Arlin Crotts

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139045384.008

Chapter 7 - The Pull of the Far Side

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014

Arlin Crotts

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Arlin Crotts: Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York

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Summary

With a holy host of others standing around me
Still I’m on the dark side of the moon
And it seems like it goes on like this forever
You must forgive me
If I’m up and gone to Carolina in my mind

– James Taylor, 1968, “Carolina in My Mind”

People seem forever confused about the Far Side versus dark side of the Moon. Let us be clear – here is an easy mnemonic: the dark side is darker, and the Far Side is farther! They are not the same except once per month, at full Moon. The Moon, like Earth (and other planets), has at any time a side pointed away from the Sun. That is the dark side.

The Moon has another effect in play; the same lunar Near Side always turns to face Earth, with the opposite side – the Far Side – turned away. This matter of physics is common to many worlds. A consequence is that almost half of the Moon’s surface remained hidden to humans until 1959, two years to the day after Sputnik 1’s launch, when the third Soviet lunar probe attempt, Luna 3, photographed the Far Side for the first time (Figure 2.1). Beforehand, that side had been an abyss to human knowledge, more unknown to us than distant reaches of the Universe, and a place where one might peer into space and never see Earth. This sense of isolation James Taylor invokes with the “dark side.”

Type: Chapter
Information: The New Moon
Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation
, pp. 211 - 226

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139045384.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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