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Asked by dovey118 to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: Space.
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Robert Simpson answered on 14 Mar 2011:
The Moon’s orbit is ‘locked’ with the Earth and because of this it always faces us in the same way. This means that we never see one half of the Moon and this is called the ‘dark side’ of the Moon.
In fact, the dark side isn’t dark at all, it gets just as much light from the Sun at the side that we see. When we see a Full Moon, the dark side is not lit, but when we have a New Moon it is the ‘dark side’ that is lit and so we don’t see anything. There’s a useful animation here: http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/moonphase.html
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Adam Tuff answered on 14 Mar 2011:
The dark side of the moon isn’t dark as in “never illuminated”. The dark side is called the dark side of the moon because it always faces away from us – the moon is “tidally locked” to us, as over the millions of years the earth has affected the moon’s rotation until it has become synchronised.
If you ask your parents, they might tell you that it is a really good album by a band called Pink Floyd – this is also correct!
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Sheila Kanani answered on 15 Mar 2011:
There is no actual dark side of the Moon. What it means is that the Moon orbits us at the exact same rate as we rotate, so the same side of the Moon always faces us….this means we never see the other side of the Moon, hence it has been called the dark side of the Moon. Imagine you are spinning slowly in a circle and your mate is walking clockwise around you at the same rate as you are spinning, you will thus always see their right side and never their left side, so their left side could be called their ‘dark side’ 🙂
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Suzie Sheehy answered on 15 Mar 2011:
It’s the side of the moon facing away from us. It turns that the moon rotates on its axis and orbits the earth at just the right rate so that the same side is always facing us! I’ve always thought this a huge coincidence…
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