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The near side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces towards Earth, opposite to the far side. Only one side of the Moon is visible from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that the Moon orbits the Earth—a situation known as tidal locking . The Moon is directly illuminated by the Sun, and the cyclically ...
Tidal locking results in the Moon rotating about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit Earth. Except for libration, this results in the Moon keeping the same face turned toward Earth, as seen in the left figure. If the Moon were not rotating at all, it would alternately show its near and far sides to Earth, while moving around Earth ...
Photograph of the far side of the Moon, with Mare Orientale (center left) and the mare of the crater Apollo (top left) being visible, taken by Orion spacecraft during the Artemis 1 mission. The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's ...
The orbit of the Moon is a nearly circular ellipse about the Earth (the semimajor and semiminor axes are 384,400 km and 383,800 km, respectively: a difference of only 0.16%). The equation of the ellipse yields an eccentricity of 0.0549 and perigee and apogee distances of 362,600 km (225,300 mi) and 405,400 km (251,900 mi) respectively (a ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -China landed an uncrewed spacecraft on the far side of the moon on Sunday, a landmark mission aiming to retrieve the world's first rock and soil samples from the dark lunar ...
Atmosphere of the Moon. The thin lunar atmosphere is visible on the Moon's surface at sunrise and sunset with the lunar horizon glow [ 1] and lunar twilight rays, like Earth's crepuscular rays. This Apollo 17 sketch depicts the glow and rays [ 2] among the general zodiacal light [ 3][ 4]. The atmosphere of the Moon is a very sparse layer of ...
The lunar distance is on average approximately 385,000 km (239,000 mi), or 1.28 light-seconds; this is roughly 30 times Earth's diameter or 9.5 times Earth's circumference. Around 389 lunar distances make up an AU astronomical unit (roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun). Lunar distance is commonly used to express the distance to near ...
This 30 m (98 ft) diameter crater formed between July 2010 and May 2012 (19 November 2013; 3.7°N 53.4°E ). [1] In planetary geology, a ray system comprises radial streaks of fine ejecta thrown out during the formation of an impact crater, looking somewhat like many thin spokes coming from the hub of a wheel. The rays may extend for lengths up ...