NASA has released an animation showing what the other side of the moon actually looks like.
According to the Daily Mail, a probe known as the Soviet Luna 3 saw the side we don’t see back in 1959. We don’t see the dark side of the moon, as it has been referred to as, due to the tidal lock the moon has with the Earth.
The animation shows the moon going through the usual phases that we see on “the near side,” according to the video. The video says the moon’s terrain on “the far side is quite different. It lacks the large dark spots, called maria, that makes up the familiar Man in the Moon on the near side.”
Our planet Earth is also seen in the background as it appears to disappear behind the satellite and moves in a direction known as figure eight. An imaginary line is placed between our Earth and the Moon to give a view of where to look.
The Huffington Post reported that the features of this far side of the moon not only has different sizes of craters, but also what is known as the South Pole-Aitken basin, which is “one of the largest and oldest impact features in the solar system.” This basin is seen in the video and appears to look like a dark bruise.
In the video, the narrator states that from the view of the far side, while it looks like the moon is full, the other side actually shows a waning crescent moon that we can see.