Aliens, military technology, secret development! That only will not come up with supporters of various conspiracy theories. After all, there were people who firmly believed that the moon was made of cheese. Fortunately, since 1959 we roughly understand what the dark side of the earth satellite represents, and the recent landing of the Chinese Chang'e-4 probe has expanded our knowledge.
The mysterious dark side of the moon
In fact, there is nothing “dark” on this side, because it is also illuminated by sunlight. Speaking in scientific language, the word “reverse” is used, which better reflects the nature of the issue.
For a long time, no one knew what was on the far side of the moon, because we were banally not seeing. The blame here is the relationship between Earth and the Moon. The fact is that periods of the axial lunar revolution and its rotation around the planet approximate (27.3 days). Therefore, the earth observer sees the “face”, and not ... the back hemisphere. It is believed that synchronization arose about 4 billion years ago.
Theories and guesses
Photo of the visible and reverse side of the moon
If a person does not know or does not see something, then this emptiness is necessarily filled with various suspicions, theories and conjectures. More often than not, we are focused on the craziest ideas. Thus, any play of light is perceived as evidence of something abnormal. It was thought that aliens were hiding on the dark side. They can live in lava tubes below the surface, or they have buildings at the top. It was rumored that astronauts missions Apollo - 11 saw strange flashes of light and could even notice representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Moreover, it was said that all American flights were tracked, and the Americans entered into a dialogue with the aliens with the help of a special code language (how not to recall the movie “Arrival”).
Flight of the Moon-3
The first photographs of the dark side of the Moon were obtained thanks to the Soviet interplanetary station Luna-3. The device had a camera with two lenses at different focal lengths. This allowed to obtain frames with different exposure times. Scientists not only photographed the reverse side, but were able to provide the first surface map. No buildings were found at the bottom, secret American bases and even the newcomers did not angrily wave their fists.
What is hiding on the dark side of the moon?
Interestingly, the reverse side is still different from the front. First of all, we are talking about relief. The surface represented a continental type with a small number of seas, but an abundance of craters. If we talk about the seas, there are only two of them: the Sea of Dreams and Moscow. But it is also interesting that it is here that 9 largest craters live.
Chang'e-4's recent mission
Shooting from orbit is a great achievement, but in 2019 the prize for the space championship went to the Chinese probe Chang'e-4. This is the first artificial apparatus in the world, which managed to make a successful landing on the reverse side of the Moon, and also to lower the lunar rover Yutu-2.
The probe not only transmits high-quality images directly from the surface, but after the night period it managed to send data on the temperature regime. It turned out that on the dark side the temperature is 17 ° C lower than on the front side.
In addition, the interesting was biological experiment. On board the ship was a container with water, soil, air, four types of plants (seeds) and fruit fly eggs. Surprisingly, one of cotton seeds managed to germinate! True, due to low temperatures and lack of protection (the device turned off the system in sleep mode), all the “living creatures” died.
Postscript
The dark side of the moon is still of interest because it is different from the visible. Chinese scientists also plan to collect samples, because there are suspicions that the composition of the soil is different. Soon, the Chang'e-5 mission should set off, and the Moon will have to reveal secrets.
