The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is rugged, with a multitude of impact craters and relatively few flat and dark lunar maria ("seas"), giving it an appearance closer to other barren places in the Solar System such as Mercury and Callisto. It has one of the largest craters in the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

, the South Pole–Aitken basin. The hemisphere is sometimes called the "dark side of the Moon", where "dark" means "unknown" instead of "lacking sunlight" each side of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

experiences two weeks of

sunlight Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when ...

while the opposite side experiences two weeks of night. About 18 percent of the far side is occasionally visible from Earth due to

libration In lunar astronomy, libration is the wagging or wavering of the Moon perceived by Earth-bound observers and caused by changes in their perspective. It permits an observer to see slightly different hemispheres of the surface at different tim ...

. The remaining 82 percent remained unobserved until 1959, when it was photographed by the Soviet Luna 3 space probe. The

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

published the first atlas of the far side in 1960. The

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. The ...

astronauts were the first humans to see the far side in person when they orbited the Moon in 1968. All manned and unmanned soft landings had taken place on the

near side of the Moon 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 ...

, until 3 January 2019 when the Chang'e 4 spacecraft made the first landing on the far side. Astronomers have suggested installing a large

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

on the far side, where the Moon would shield it from possible radio interference from Earth.

Definition

Tidal force The tidal force is a gravitational effect that stretches a body along the line towards the center of mass of another body due to a gradient (difference in strength) in gravitational field from the other body; it is responsible for diverse phenomen ...

s from

have slowed the Moon's rotation to the point where the same side is always facing the Earth—a phenomenon called

tidal locking Tidal locking between a pair of co- orbiting astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked b ...

. The other face, most of which is never visible from the Earth, is therefore called the "far side of the Moon". Over time, some crescent-shaped edges of the far side can be seen due to

. In total, 59 percent of the Moon's surface is visible from Earth at one time or another. Useful observation of the parts of the far side of the Moon occasionally visible from Earth is difficult because of the low viewing angle from Earth (they cannot be observed "full on"). A common misconception is that the Moon does not rotate on its axis. If that were so, the whole of the Moon would be visible to Earth over the course of its orbit. Instead, its rotation period matches its orbital period, meaning it turns around once for every orbit it makes: in Earth terms, it could be said that its

day A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two ...

and its year have the same length (i.e., ~29.5 earth days). This is, as stated, a result of tidal locking. The phrase "dark side of the Moon" does not refer to "dark" as in the absence of light, but rather "dark" as in unknown: until humans were able to send spacecraft around the Moon, this area had never been seen. While many misconstrue this to think that the "dark side" receives little to no sunlight, in reality, both the near and far sides receive (on average) almost equal amounts of light directly from the Sun. However, the near side also receives sunlight reflected from the Earth, known as earthshine. Earthshine does not reach the area of the far side that cannot be seen from Earth. At night under a "full Earth" the near side of the Moon receives on the order of 10

lux The lux (symbol: lx) is the unit of illuminance, or luminous flux per unit area, in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to one lumen per square metre. In photometry, this is used as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by ...

of illumination (about what a city sidewalk under streetlights gets; this is 34 times more light than is received on Earth under a

full Moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This mea ...

) whereas the dark side of the Moon during the lunar night receives only about 0.001 lux of starlight. Only during a full Moon (as viewed from Earth) is the whole far side of the Moon dark. The word ''dark'' has expanded to refer also to the fact that communication with spacecraft can be blocked while the spacecraft is on the far side of the Moon, during Apollo space missions for example.

Differences

The two hemispheres of the Moon have distinctly different appearances, with the near side covered in multiple, large ''maria'' (Latin for 'seas,' since the earliest astronomers incorrectly thought that these plains were seas of lunar water). The far side has a battered, densely cratered appearance with few maria. Only 1% of the surface of the far side is covered by maria, compared to 31.2% on the near side. One commonly accepted explanation for this difference is related to a higher concentration of heat-producing elements on the near-side hemisphere, as has been demonstrated by geochemical maps obtained from the

Lunar Prospector ''Lunar Prospector'' was the third mission selected by NASA for full development and construction as part of the Discovery Program. At a cost of $62.8 million, the 19-month mission was designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon ...

gamma-ray spectrometer. While other factors, such as surface elevation and crustal thickness, could also affect where

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

s erupt, these do not explain why the far side South Pole–Aitken basin (which contains the lowest elevations of the Moon and possesses a thin crust) was not as volcanically active as Oceanus Procellarum on the near side. It has also been proposed that the differences between the two hemispheres may have been caused by a collision with a smaller companion moon that also originated from the Theia collision. In this model, the impact led to an accretionary pile rather than a crater, contributing a hemispheric layer of extent and thickness that may be consistent with the dimensions of the far side highlands. However, the chemical composition of the far side is inconsistent with this model. The far side has more visible craters. This was thought to be a result of the effects of lunar lava flows, which cover and obscure craters, rather than a shielding effect from the Earth.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

calculates that the Earth obscures only about 4 square degrees out of 41,000 square degrees of the sky as seen from the Moon. "This makes the Earth negligible as a shield for the Moon ndit is likely that each side of the Moon has received equal numbers of impacts, but the resurfacing by lava results in fewer craters visible on the near side than the far side, even though both sides have received the same number of impacts." Newer research suggests that heat from Earth at the time when the Moon was formed is the reason the near side has fewer impact craters. The lunar crust consists primarily of

plagioclase Plagioclase is a series of tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continuous solid solution series, more p ...

s formed when

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

and

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar ...

condensed and combined with

silicate In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is a ...

s in the mantle. The cooler far side experienced condensation of these elements sooner and so formed a thicker crust; meteoroid impacts on the near side would sometimes penetrate the thinner crust here and release basaltic lava that created the maria, but would rarely do so on the far side.

Exploration

Early exploration

Luna 3 grainy photo restoration and comparison with LRO

Until the late 1950s, little was known about the far side of the Moon. Librations periodically allowed limited glimpses of features near the lunar limb on the far side, but only up to 59% of the total surface of the Moon. These features, however, were seen from a low angle, hindering useful observation (it proved difficult to distinguish a crater from a mountain range). The remaining 82% of the surface on the far side remained unknown, and its properties were subject to much speculation. An example of a far side feature that can be seen through libration is the Mare Orientale, which is a prominent impact basin spanning almost , yet this was not even named as a feature until 1906, by Julius Franz in ''Der Mond''. The true nature of the basin was discovered in the 1960s when rectified images were projected onto a globe. The basin was photographed in fine detail by

Lunar Orbiter 4 Lunar Orbiter 4 was a robotic U.S. spacecraft, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, designed to orbit the Moon, after the three previous orbiters had completed the required needs for Apollo mapping and site selection. It was given a more general ...

in 1967. Before space exploration began, astronomers did not expect that the far side would be different from the side visible to Earth. On 7 October 1959, the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

probe Luna 3 took the first photographs of the lunar far side, eighteen of them resolvable, covering one-third of the surface invisible from the Earth.Луна (спутник Земли)

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

The images were analysed, and the first atlas of the far side of the Moon was published by the USSR Academy of Sciences on 6 November 1960. It included a catalog of 500 distinguished features of the landscape. In 1961, the first globe (1: scale)Moon maps and globes, created with the participation of Lunar and Planetary Research Department of SAI
SAI containing lunar features invisible from the Earth was released in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

, based on images from Luna 3. On 20 July 1965, another Soviet probe, Zond 3, transmitted 25 pictures of very good quality of the lunar far side, with much better resolution than those from Luna 3. In particular, they revealed chains of craters, hundreds of kilometers in length, but, unexpectedly, no mare plains like those visible from Earth with the naked eye. In 1967, the second part of the ''Atlas of the Far Side of the Moon'' was published in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, based on data from Zond 3, with the catalog now including 4,000 newly discovered features of the lunar far side landscape. In the same year, the first ''Complete Map of the Moon'' (1: scale) and updated complete globe (1: scale), featuring 95 percent of the lunar surface, were released in the Soviet Union. As many prominent landscape features of the far side were discovered by Soviet space probes, Soviet scientists selected names for them. This caused some controversy, and the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

, leaving many of those names intact, later assumed the role of naming lunar features on this hemisphere.

Further survey mission

On 26 April 1962, NASA's Ranger 4 space probe became the first spacecraft to impact the far side of the Moon, although it failed to return any scientific data before impact. The first truly comprehensive and detailed mapping survey of the far side was undertaken by the American unmanned Lunar Orbiter program launched by NASA from 1966 to 1967. Most of the coverage of the far side was provided by the final probe in the series,

Lunar Orbiter 5 Lunar Orbiter 5, the last of the " Lunar Orbiter series", was designed to take additional Apollo and Surveyor landing site photography and to take broad survey images of unphotographed parts of the Moon's far side. It was also equipped to collec ...

. The far side was first seen directly by human eyes during the

mission in December, 1968. Astronaut William Anders described the view: Back side of the Moon AS16-3021

It has been seen by all 27 crew members of the

and

Apollo 10 Apollo 10 (May 18–26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo8) to orbit the Moon. NASA described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, and ...

through

Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walke ...

missions, and photographed by multiple lunar probes. Spacecraft passing behind the Moon were out of direct radio communication with the Earth, and had to wait until the orbit allowed transmission. During the Apollo missions, the main engine of the Service Module was fired when the vessel was behind the Moon, producing some tense moments in Mission Control before the craft reappeared. Geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who became the last to step onto the Moon, had aggressively lobbied for his landing site to be on the far side of the Moon, targeting the lava-filled crater Tsiolkovskiy. Schmitt's ambitious proposal included a special communications satellite based on the existing TIROS satellites to be launched into a Farquhar–Lissajous halo orbit around the

L2 point In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (; also Lagrangian points or libration points) are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Mathematically, this involves the solution of th ...

so as to maintain line-of-sight contact with the astronauts during their powered descent and lunar surface operations. NASA administrators rejected these plans on the grounds of added risk and lack of funding. The idea of utilizing Earth–Moon for

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

covering the Moon's far side has been realized, as

China National Space Administration China National Space Administration (CNSA; ) is the government agency of the People's Republic of China that is responsible for civil space administration and international space cooperation, including organizing or leading foreign exchanges ...

launched Queqiao relay satellite in 2018. It has since been used for communications between the Chang'e 4 lander and '' Yutu 2'' rover that have successfully landed in early 2019 on the lunar far side and ground stations on the Earth. And L2 is proposed to be "an ideal location" for a propellant depot as part of the proposed depot-based space transportation architecture.

Soft landing

The

's '' Chang'e 4'' achieved humanity's first ever soft landing on the lunar far side on 3 January 2019 and deployed '' Yutu-2'' lunar rover onto far side lunar surface. The craft included a lander equipped with a low-frequency radio

spectrograph An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...

and geological research tools. The far side of the Moon provides a good environment for

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation comin ...

as interferences from the Earth are blocked by the Moon. In February 2020, Chinese astronomers reported, for the first time, a high-resolution image of a lunar ejecta sequence, and, as well, direct analysis of its internal architecture. These were based on observations made by the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) on board the ''Yutu-2'' rover.

Potential uses and missions

Because the far side of the Moon is shielded from radio transmissions from the Earth, it is considered a good location for placing

s for use by

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

s. Small, bowl-shaped craters provide a natural formation for a stationary

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...

similar to Arecibo in

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

. For much larger-scale telescopes, the crater Daedalus is situated near the center of the far side, and the rim would help to block stray communications from orbiting satellites. Another potential candidate for a radio telescope is the Saha crater. Before deploying radio telescopes to the far side, several problems must be overcome. The fine lunar dust can contaminate equipment, vehicles, and space suits. The conducting materials used for the radio dishes must also be carefully shielded against the effects of solar flares. Finally, the area around the telescopes must be protected against contamination by other radio sources. The

Lagrange point In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (; also Lagrangian points or libration points) are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Mathematically, this involves the solution of t ...

of the Earth–Moon system is located about above the far side, which has also been proposed as a location for a future radio telescope which would perform a

Lissajous orbit In orbital mechanics, a Lissajous orbit (), named after Jules Antoine Lissajous, is a quasi-periodic orbital trajectory that an object can follow around a Lagrangian point of a three-body system without requiring any propulsion. Lyapunov orbi ...

about the Lagrangian point. One of the NASA missions to the Moon under study would send a sample-return lander to the South Pole–Aitken basin, the location of a major impact event that created a formation nearly across. The force of this impact has created a deep penetration into the lunar surface, and a sample returned from this site could be analyzed for information concerning the interior of the Moon. Because the near side is partly shielded from the

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...

by the Earth, the far side maria are expected to have the highest concentration of

helium-3 Helium-3 (3He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (the most common isotope, helium-4, having two protons and two neutrons in contrast). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the ...

on the surface of the Moon. This

isotope Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers ( mass num ...

is relatively rare on the Earth, but has good potential for use as a fuel in fusion reactors. Proponents of lunar settlement have cited the presence of this material as a reason for developing a Moon base.

Named features

* Aitken (crater) *

Amici (crater) Amici is a lunar impact crater that is located on the rugged far side of the Moon. It lies to the south of the larger crater Icarus, to the north of McKellar. The rim of Amici has been eroded and distorted by subsequent impacts, so that is no ...

* Anuchin (crater) *

Apollo (crater) Apollo is an enormous impact crater located in the southern sphere, hemisphere on the Far side (Moon), far side of the Moon. This formation dwarfs the large crater Oppenheimer (crater), Oppenheimer that is located next to the western rim. The crate ...

Avogadro (crater) Avogadro is an ancient lunar impact crater that is located in the northern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon. The formation has been heavily worn and eroded by subsequent impacts, so that the rim is now little more than a rounded edge surr ...

* Bel'kovich (crater) * Belopol'skiy (crater) *

Bergstrand (crater) Bergstrand is a lunar impact crater that lies on the far side of the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet ...

Berkner (crater) Berkner is a lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon, just past the western limb. It is attached to the east-southeast rim of the crater Parenago. Just to the south is the Robertson Robertson may refer to: People * Ro ...

* Birkhoff (crater) *

Bjerknes (lunar crater) Bjerknes is a lunar impact crater that is located in the southern hemisphere on the rugged far side of the Moon. The crater lies behind the southeastern limb, and beyond the region that is sometimes brought into sight through libration. Thu ...

Bok (lunar crater) Bok is a lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon. To the southeast is the crater Sniadecki; to the north is McKellar, and further to the west is De Vries De Vries is one of the most common Dutch surnames. It indica ...

* Campbell (lunar crater) *

Cantor (crater) Cantor is a lunar impact crater that is located on the northern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon. The outer rim of the crater has a distinctly hexagonal shape, and is slightly longer in the north–south direction. The interior walls are ...

* Carnot (crater) * Cassegrain (crater) * Chandler (crater) * Chappell (crater) * Chernyshev (crater) *

Comrie (crater) Comrie is a Lunar craters, lunar impact crater. It is located on the rugged Far side (Moon), far side of the Moon relative to the Earth, beyond the western limb. Nearby craters of note include Ohm (crater), Ohm to the south-southwest, Shternberg (c ...

Coulomb-Sarton Basin The Coulomb-Sarton Basin is a Pre-Nectarian impact basin on the far side of the moon. It is named after the crater Coulomb northeast of the center of the basin and the smaller crater Sarton just south of the center. The basin is not obvious o ...

* Crookes (crater) *

d'Alembert (crater) d'Alembert is a large lunar impact crater located in the northern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon, to the northeast of the somewhat smaller walled plain Campbell. Astride the southwest rim of d'Alembert is Slipher. To the north is the ...

* Daedalus (crater) * Davisson (crater) * Delporte (crater) * Dyson (crater) * Ellerman (crater) *

Emden (crater) Emden is a lunar impact crater that is located in the northern hemisphere on the far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran fr ...

* Esnault-Pelterie (crater) *

Finsen (crater) Finsen is a lunar impact crater that is located in the southern hemisphere, on the Moon's far side. It is attached to the southeastern exterior of the walled plain Leibnitz, and the ejecta from Finsen covers the southeastern part of Leibnitz's ...

Fleming (crater) Fleming is a large lunar impact crater that is located on the Moon's far side, and cannot be seen from the Earth. It lies about a crater diameter to the east-northeast of Hertz, and to the northwest of Lobachevskiy. The low rim of this for ...

Fowler (crater) Fowler is a large lunar impact crater that lies in the northern hemisphere on the Moon's far side. It lies to the south-southwest of the crater Esnault-Pelterie, and north of Gadomski. Overlying the eastern rim and intruding into the interior ...

* Fridman (crater) * Gerasimovich (crater) * Gullstrand (crater) * Hayn (crater) *

Hegu (crater) Hegu is a lunar impact crater that is located within Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon. The crater is located south of the landing site of the Chinese Chang'e 4 lander. The crater's name was approved by the IAU on 4 February 201 ...

* Hertzsprung (crater) * H. G. Wells (crater) *

Hippocrates (lunar crater) Hippocrates is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located in the northern region of the lunar surface, to the north of the crater Stebbins. To the southwest of Hippocrates are Kirkwood and the large Sommerfeld. This is ...

* Houzeau (crater) * Icarus (crater) * Ioffe (crater) * Izsak (crater) *

Jenner (crater) Jenner is a lunar crater that is located within the Mare Australe. It lies just past the southeastern limb, on the far side of the Moon, and can be viewed from the Earth during periods of favorable libration and lighting. Nearly attached to th ...

Kamerlingh Onnes (crater) Kamerlingh Onnes is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It lies less than a crater diameter to the north-northwest of the crater Kolhörster. North of Kamerlingh Onnes lies Shternberg and to the northwest is Weyl. This is a wor ...

Kirkwood (crater) Kirkwood is a well-formed lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon, on the northern hemisphere, approximately 68 kilometers in diameter. It lies just to the northeast of the crater Sommerfeld, and Hippocrates is located ...

Klute (crater) Klute is a crater on the Moon's far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Lar ...

* Kolhörster (crater) *

Komarov (crater) Komarov is a lunar impact crater that lies across the southeastern edge of Mare Moscoviense, on the northern hemisphere of the far side of the Moon. It is a complex feature with an irregular appearance. The northern rim of Komarov bulges outwa ...

Korolev (lunar crater) Korolev is a large lunar impact crater of the walled plain or basin type. It is named for Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev. It lies on the far side of the Moon, and the northern part of its floor crosses the lunar equator. Notable nearby c ...

Kovalevskaya (crater) Kovalevskaya is a prominent lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon. It lies to the southwest of the larger walled plain Landau. To the south of Kovalevskaya are the craters Poynting and Fersman. This crater overlies ...

* Kugler (crater) * Kulik (crater) * Lamb (crater) * Lacus Oblivionis *

Lander (crater) Lander is a lunar impact crater that is located just to the north-northeast of the prominent Tsiolkovskiy, on the far side of the Moon. Attached to the northeastern rim of Lander is Volkov J, which is joined with Volkov to the north. Just to t ...

Langevin (crater) Langevin is a crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located to the east of the walled plain Campbell, and to the west of the crater Chandler Chandler or The Chandler may refer to: * Chandler (occupation), originally head of the medieval ...

Lebedev (crater) Lebedev is a crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located at the eastern edge of the irregular feature known as Mare Australe. The crater lies to the southeast of the larger, flooded Lamb, and to the east-northeast of Anuchin. To the south ...

* Leibnitz (crater) *

Lucretius (crater) Lucretius is an impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located to the southeast of the huge walled plain Hertzsprung, within the outer skirt of ejecta that surrounds that impact feature. To the southwest of Lucretius lies Fridman. T ...

* Lunar south pole * Maksutov (crater) * McKellar (crater) *

Mare Australe Mare Australe (Latin ''austrāle'' the "Southern Sea") is a lunar mare located in the southeastern hemisphere of the Moon. It is 997 kilometers in diameter, overlapping the near and far sides of the Moon. Smooth, dark volcanic basalt lines t ...

Mare Frigoris Mare Frigoris (Latin ''frīgōris'', the "Sea of Cold") is a lunar mare in the far north of the Moon. It is located in the outer rings of the Procellarum basin, just north of Mare Imbrium, and stretches east to north of Mare Serenitatis. It is ...

Mare Humboldtianum Mare Humboldtianum ( Latin ''humboldtiānum'', the "Sea of Alexander von Humboldt") is a lunar mare located just to the east of Mare Frigoris, in the center of Humboldtianum basin. It is located along the northeastern limb of the Moon, and ...

Mare Ingenii Mare Ingenii (Latin ''ingeniī'', the "Sea of Cleverness") is one of the few lunar mare features on the far side of the Moon. The mare sits in the Ingenii basin, which is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, which lies in turn in the outer part of the ol ...

* Mare Moscoviense * Mare Orientale * Mendeleev (crater) *

Michelson (crater) Michelson is a crater on the far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson ...

Montes Cordillera Montes Cordillera is a mountain range on the Moon. This feature forms the outer wall of peaks that surround the Mare Orientale impact basin, the inner ring being formed by the Montes Rook. The center of the range is located at selenographic coor ...

* Montes Rook * Mons Tai * Nicholson (lunar crater) * Nishina (crater) *

Ohm (crater) Ohm is a lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon. It lies to the south of the crater Comrie, and the satellite crater Comrie K is attached to Ohm's northeastern rim. To the northwest is the larger Shternberg, and to th ...

* Oppenheimer (crater) * Oresme (crater) * Pannekoek (crater) * Paraskevopoulos (crater) * Parenago (crater) * Patsaev (crater) * Perrine (crater) * Pettit (lunar crater) * Pirquet (crater) *

Pogson (crater) Pogson is a lunar impact crater on the Moon's far side, behind the southeastern limb. It is located midway between the flooded crater Lebedev to the southwest and Bjerknes to the northeast. Farther west of Pogson is the uneven Mare Australe. Th ...

* Priestley (lunar crater) * Quetelet (crater) * Rowland (crater) * Sarton (crater) * Schlesinger (crater) * Shaler (crater) *

Shternberg (crater) Shternberg is an eroded lunar impact crater on the Moon's far side. It lies just to the west-northwest of the crater Ohm, and is completely covered by higher-albedo material from the ray system A ray system comprises radial streaks of fine ''ej ...

* Shuleykin (crater) * Sniadecki (crater) *

Sommerfeld (crater) Sommerfeld is a large lunar impact crater that is located in the far northern latitudes of the Moon. It lies on the far side, and can only be viewed from orbit. To the south of Sommerfeld is Rowland, a crater about the same size as Sommerfeld ...

* South Pole–Aitken basin * Statio Tianhe * Stebbins (crater) *

Stoletov (crater) Stoletov is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located in the northern hemisphere, less than one crater diameter to the north of Kulik. To the northwest of Stoletov is Montgolfier The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Mi ...

* Sverdrup (crater) *

Tianjin (crater) Tianjin is a lunar impact crater that is located within Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon. The crater is located northeast of the landing site of the Chinese Chang'e 4 lander. The crater's name was approved by the IAU on 4 Febru ...

* Tikhov (lunar crater) *

Titov (crater) Titov is a relatively small lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. The most unusual aspect of this crater is that it is located entirely within the Mare Moscoviense, one of the few maria found on the far side of the Moon. It lies to th ...

* Tsinger (crater) * Tsiolkovskiy (crater) *

Tyndall (lunar crater) Tyndall is a relatively small Lunar craters, lunar impact crater on the Far side (Moon), far side of the Moon, behind the southeastern limb. It is located very near the western outer rim of the larger crater Pizzetti (crater), Pizzetti, and the ...

* Vallis Bouvard * Vallis Inghirami * van't Hoff (crater) *

Van der Waals (crater) Van der Waals is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It is a heavily eroded feature with an irregular outer rim. The edge is lowest along the southern side where it is little more than a circular crest along the ground. It is more ...

* Vavilov (crater) *

Vertregt (crater) Vertregt is the ancient remnant of a large lunar impact crater. It is located on the far side of the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massi ...

* Volkov (crater) * Von Kármán (lunar crater) * Von Zeipel (crater) * Wan-Hoo (crater) * Wiener (crater) *

Wright (lunar crater) Wright is a lunar impact crater that is located near the western limb of the Moon. It lies on the irregular plain between the Montes Cordillera and Montes Rook, two ring-shaped mountain ranges that surround the Mare Orientale. Just to the so ...

Yamamoto (crater) Yamamoto is a damaged lunar impact crater that is located to the north of the large walled plain D'Alembert. To the north-northeast is the crater Avogadro. This feature lies on the northern hemisphere of the Moon's far side ''The Far Side' ...

Zhinyu (crater) Zhinyu is a lunar impact crater that is located within Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon. The crater is located west of the landing site of the Chinese Chang'e 4 lander. The crater's name was approved by the IAU on 4 February 2 ...

References

External links

Lunar and Planetary Institute: Exploring the Moon

NASA takes first video of dark side of the Moon

Lunar and Planetary Institute: Lunar Atlases

* ttps://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/luna/moon_farsidemap.htm Full Moon Atlas: Lunar Far Side at lunarrepublic.com
Northwest Africa 482, only meteorite believed to have originated from the far side of the Moon

*
''LIFE'' magazine (Nov. 9, 1959) article about first photos.
{{Portal bar, Geology, Astronomy, Stars, Outer space, Solar System, Science Lunar science Hemispheres of Moon