Скачать или смотреть James Webb Telescope Reveals Giant Feature Hidden on the Moon’s Far Side

Humanity has always been captivated by the Moon, but serious scientific exploration only began in the 1950s with the development of robotic spacecraft by the United States and the Soviet Union. The first probe to reach the Moon was the Soviet Luna 1 mission in 1959, which flew past its surface. This was followed by Luna 9 in 1966, achieving the first successful soft landing. Three years later, Apollo 11 made history when American astronauts became the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface in 1969. In the decades since, many nations have launched orbiters and landers, and as of January 2024, five countries have successfully landed spacecraft on the Moon.

Despite these remarkable milestones, one region of the Moon long remained unexplored: its far side. This hemisphere never faces Earth, making it permanently hidden from our direct view and earning the misleading nickname “the dark side of the Moon.” In reality, sunlight reaches it just as often as the near side—it is simply turned away from us. Visiting it requires traveling there by spacecraft. Today, advanced observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope allow us to study regions beyond the lunar horizon, opening a new era of discovery.

As we explore the Moon’s hidden hemisphere, we uncover lesser-known features and long-standing mysteries. Whether people see shapes resembling faces, animals, or symbols on the Moon’s surface, everyone on Earth is observing the same hemisphere. So why is the far side never visible?

The answer lies in the Moon’s relationship with Earth. The Moon takes almost exactly the same amount of time to rotate once on its axis as it does to orbit our planet. As a result, the same side always faces Earth. This phenomenon is known as tidal locking—a spin-orbit synchronization that keeps one lunar hemisphere permanently turned toward us.

The Moon does have a true “dark side,” but it is not fixed. Which regions are shadowed depends entirely on the Moon’s phase. During a new Moon, the side facing Earth is dark because the Moon lies between Earth and the Sun. At full Moon, the near side is fully illuminated while the far side is in darkness. Over time, every part of the Moon experiences both sunlight and shadow.

The far side remained unknown until 1959, when the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 delivered humanity’s first images of it during the early years of the Space Race. By modern standards, Luna 3 was extremely primitive, yet Soviet engineers managed to send it into lunar orbit just two years after Sputnik 1. The spacecraft captured 29 photographs using photographic film—remarkably, film originally designed for American spy balloons due to its radiation resistance. These images were developed, fixed, and dried onboard, then scanned and transmitted back to Earth using a crude mechanical system. Luna 3 carried two cameras: one wide-angle and one narrower with higher resolution. Although only 17 images were successfully transmitted—and just six were clear enough for publication—they revealed roughly 70% of the Moon’s far side and completely transformed lunar science.