It's not every day that we get to see the dark side of the moon. Here on Earth, we always only ever see one side of the moon, as it rotates just slowly enough so that while it orbits the Earth, only one side of the moon ever shows itself.
Fortunately, that's why NASA puts expensive spacecrafts into outer space, allowing us to see the unseen with top-of-the-line imaging technology.
NASA's Deep Space Observatory, which is located approximately 1 million miles away from the Earth, has recorded a time-lapse set of photographs of the dark side of the moon as the moon orbits the Earth, as it intends to do at least twice a year.
NASA, sort of, lucked out on the positioning of the Deep Space Observatory, which happens to be in a very good place for seeing both the Earth and the dark side of the moon as sunlight strikes them simultaneously, giving about the best view possible.
"It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon," Adam Szabo, a scientist at NASA scientist said in a statement. "Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface."
The first images of the dark side of the moon were taken in 1959 by a Soviet spacecraft, but the quality of the photographs wasn't the best given the camera quality of the technology we had back then.
These more recent images, which are superbly high in quality, show the unseen side of the moon as the large space rock passes over the Pacific Ocean.
The photos were captured on the 16th of July, and illustrate a crater on the surface of the dark side of the moon, as well as a largely unscathed plane, known as the Mare Moscoviense.
As NASA continues to break records and show us higher quality images of our own solar system, we can't help by applaud them for their incredible efforts and successes.
Source: NASA
Space & Astronomy
AUG 06, 2015