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Study: Why the Moon's Far Side Looks So Different

StartsWithABang writes 55 years ago, the Soviet probe Luna 3 imaged the side of the Moon that faces away from us for the first time. Surprisingly, there were only two very small maria (dark regions) and large amounts of mountainous terrain, in stark contrast to the side that faces us. This remained a mystery for a very long time, even after we developed the giant impact hypothesis to explain the origin of the Moon. But a new study finally appears to solve the mystery, crediting the heat generated on the near side from a hot, young Earth with creating the differences between the two hemispheres.

4 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Cosmic Baking by djupedal · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is what happens when you don't read the directions on the package...

    1. Re:Cosmic Baking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      See, there has always been Global Warming.

    2. Re:Cosmic Baking by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

      But I like my buns crispy on top.

      uh, don't read too much into that.

  2. Re:Rotation by sg_oneill · · Score: 3, Funny

    How does lunar recession affect things here?

    Space-ron-paul was right! Convert your lunar-coins to bitcoins before the collapse!

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.