Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It’s far side, not dark side. The moon doesn’t have a dark side anymore than the earth does




NASA uses "dark side" (meaning far side, not night side) when facing the public [0]:

> A series of test images shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the Moon that is not visible from Earth.

> The far side of the Moon was first observed in 1959

[0] https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-dark-si...


> the fully illuminated “dark side”

Personally, I don't find the phrase 'fully illuminated “dark side”' to be a convincing alternative to the physically more accurate term 'far side'. Of course NASA has only just emerged from the Earth's dark side as I write this (UK here, mid-morning), so I'm not expecting an immediate response from them.

And yes, I do know that 'side' is itself not entirely accurate because of libration [0] but that's a different hill to die on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration#Lunar_libration


Agreed.

The far side is the darker side, though, at lunar night. Poetic proof: "The Earth shine might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long night" (from Jules Verne, All Around the Moon https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16457/pg16457-images.ht...)


I do like poetry, but if we are looking at a crescent moon, in our night, it means that the bulk of farside is facing toward the sun, and will therefore be brighter than nearside



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: