THE DARK SIDE of the moon is so mysterious that it has inspired bands like Pink Floyd to write a whole album titled after it (as well as this heartbreaking song).
Now Nasa have only gone and captured a new video showing what the dark side looks like. Bless them.
The unique view of the moon was captured by Nasa’s camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) last month, as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth.
You can’t see the dark side of the moon from Earth because the moon is tidally locked to our planet, so these images are pretty special indeed.
The images show the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America, said Nasa – if you look closely, you can see the North Pole in the upper left corner.
The first time the far side of the moon was captured on film was in 1959, thanks to the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft.
US President Barack Obama was impressed:
“The lunar far side lacks the large, dark, basaltic plains, or maria, that are so prominent on the Earth-facing side,” said Nasa.
The largest far side features are Mare Moscoviense in the upper left and Tsiolkovskiy crater in the lower left. A thin sliver of shadowed area of moon is visible on its right side.
“It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon,” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”
Nasa will be setting up a dedicated public website for new colour images of Earth soon.
They will be sent by Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which is on the DSCOVR satellite.
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