The Moon Always Faces Earth
No matter where you are on Earth, no matter what time of night, you are always looking at the same side of the Moon. The other side exists — it's just never visible from Earth. For thousands of years, humans had no idea what it looked like.
An Experiment to Try: Stand in the middle of a room. Ask someone to walk slowly in a circle around you. Now ask them to walk in a circle again, but this time, always keep their face pointing towards you.
Watch carefully. To keep facing you the whole time, they had to slowly spin around as they walked. That's exactly what the Moon does.
The Moon That Never Turns Its Back
No matter where you are on Earth, no matter what time of night it is, you are always looking at the same side of the Moon. The other side exists — it's just never visible from Earth.
For thousands of years, humans had no idea what the other side of the Moon looked like. It was one of the great mysteries of the sky.
Why This Happens
The Moon travels around Earth once every 27 days. It also spins slowly on its own axis once every 27 days. Because these two movements take exactly the same amount of time, the same face is always pointing our way.
Scientists call this synchronous rotation. It is not a coincidence — Earth's gravity gradually slowed the Moon's spin over billions of years until the two movements locked together.
The Far Side Is Not the Dark Side
The side we never see from Earth is often called the dark side of the Moon, but this is a common mix-up. Both sides of the Moon receive sunlight. The far side has days and nights just like the near side. It is simply the side that faces away from us, not the side that faces away from the Sun.
The first humans to see the far side with their own eyes were the astronauts of Apollo 8, in 1968. They described it as a vast, lonely landscape of craters.
