Wondering about the dark side.

It seems that most everybody and every thing has a dark side.  There was a TV show with that name that ran from the fall of 1984 until July of 1988.  There were also around that time a lot of similar shows, like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, The Outer Limits, Tales From the Crypt, etc.  Do you remember any of them?  I do and I watch any reruns that may show up on TV.

OK, I am not talking about a TV show, I am talking about something that a very limited number of people have seen.  I am talking about the dark side of our moon.  You see, the moon is locked into a syncronous orbit with the earth so that same face is always pointing towards us.  In other words, it rotates on its axis once for every one time the earth rotates on its axis.  So, we only get to see the one face of the moon.

It wasn't until the space progam made it possible to see the other side of the moon that we got the chance to see "the other side", and yes, it is different.  Just in case you haven't had the chance to zoom around the moon, I thought that I would show you a picture from Astronomy magazine what both sides look like and you can compare them:

As you can see, the dark side of the moon is actually brighter than the near side.  Why?  Because the once molten mantle (the layer just under the crust) is much thinner than the other side and it allowed the molten stuff to pour out of meteor impact craters and smooth out the surface.  Now, I hope I didn't ruin the romantic impression that the full moon gives you, but try to have a great day (and night - but look up at the moon) you hear?