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THE DARK SIDE of the moon is so mysterious that it has inspired bands like Pink Floyd to write a whole album titled after it (as well as this heartbreaking song).
Now Nasa have only gone and captured a new video showing what the dark side looks like. Bless them.
The unique view of the moon was captured by Nasa’s camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) last month, as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth.
You can’t see the dark side of the moon from Earth because the moon is tidally locked to our planet, so these images are pretty special indeed.
The images show the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America, said Nasa – if you look closely, you can see the North Pole in the upper left corner.
The first time the far side of the moon was captured on film was in 1959, thanks to the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft.
US President Barack Obama was impressed:
President Obama / TwitterPretty incredible time lapse of the dark side of the moon passing Earth from @NASA. American ingenuity at work! pic.twitter.com/JKep9bcxGQ
— President Obama (@POTUS44) August 5, 2015
“The lunar far side lacks the large, dark, basaltic plains, or maria, that are so prominent on the Earth-facing side,” said Nasa.
The largest far side features are Mare Moscoviense in the upper left and Tsiolkovskiy crater in the lower left. A thin sliver of shadowed area of moon is visible on its right side.
“It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon,” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”
Nasa will be setting up a dedicated public website for new colour images of Earth soon.
They will be sent by Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which is on the DSCOVR satellite.
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What’s with the negativity? This is a number of images taken from an observatory spacecraft 1.5 million kilometres from earth. It doesn’t take real time high-def videos, it takes photographs.
That’s what it did and NASA combined them to make a little video.
Wow this is impressive, at this rate we’ll soon have the technology to actually go to the moon!
There is no such thing as the dark side of the moon. Pink Floyd has a lot to answer for.
How I wish you were here.
There is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it’s all dark . Jerry O’Driscoll . DSOTM .
Thats an amazing video nasa, but you should try to upgrade from microsoft movie maker to something a bit more professional – then your computer generated ‘videos’ would look slightly less fake!
Definitly a Starbucks already there.
When I saw first I said wow till I saw obama tweet ‘American ingenuity at work’.. I take it he is talking about his work in the middle east?
Bit of a disappointment to say the least!
Looks like someone messing around with a glass marble and a round stone in a photographer’s studio.
Chris Staples. Nice.
Where are all the stars?
“The reason why no or very little stars can be seen is because of the Earth. The Earth, when lit by the Sun, is many thousands times brighter than the stars around it. As a result the Earth is so bright that it swamps out most if not all of the stars.”
“The reason that the stars do not show up on the film is that the stars are so dim that the camera cannot gather enough of their light in a short exposure. Our eyes are a lot more sensitive to light than photographic film.”
The stars are not as bright or brighter than the Earth and therefore the camera doesn’t pick them up, supposedly?
C’mon now! We’ve moved on a long way since ‘photographic film’. It’s all digital now, and I should believe NASA don’t have camera technology to get a balanced shot to include stars? I shoot bracketed night shots to get all I need, including stars, using a 5 stop spread. Note to self, apply to NASA for photographers job.
stand under a street light with your camera pointed at the sky and see how many stars you get in your picture. Doesn’t matter what camera you use, you won’t get a single star in your picture.
Dear NASA, next time you take a picture of the dark side of the moon, try not to stand under a street light. Experts imply you will get far better results.
Did anyone else notice the white object that appears and disappears around the 14 seconds mark at the top of the screen. wonder if it was a satilite or the international space station.
where is the images of the Shard. Rubbed out
Can’t believe people still fall for this S**t!!!!.
I can now die in peace
It’s not really dark if the sun shines at it as much as the part we see.
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