this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 9 points 38 minutes ago

You're an ill-informed English major. You instructed me to call you that, so I did.

The light source for this image is the Sun.

"The dark side of the moon" is a phrase that seems to have a strange effect on people; they seem to use that phrase to incorrectly mean the far side of the moon, and then that puts the idea in their heads that the far side is always dark. It isn't; the far side is fixed, the dark side is constantly changing.

The Moon is tidally locked to Earth, this means the moon's rotational speed and its orbital period are the same, the moon rotates once on its axis for every one orbit of the Earth it performs, meaning it doesn't (significantly) rotate when seen from Earth. No human saw the far side of the moon until the Soviets flew a satellite around it, and only 27 men and 1 woman have ever seen it with their own eyes. Until this week, those numbers were 24 and 0.

It is hidden from us but not from the Sun; we observe the Earth waxing and waning, being full and then half a month later being new. When the moon is new, the near side is in darkness and the far side is in light. On the Lunar surface, a day and night takes an entire month, while the continents and oceans of the Earth hanging still in space overhead whirl past nearly 30 times.

Finally...the image above isn't the whole far side. About half of the near side is visible; the big dark patch to the right is the Ocean of Storms, most of the Sea of Rain is visible as well. Kepler and Copernicus crater are visible, Tycho is just out of shot, if you look closely you can just barely see one of Tycho's rays across the Sea of Clouds. That one very dark patch just right of center is Grimaldi crater. All those features are visible from the Earth, in fact two of the Apollo landing sites are visible here, 12 and 14. The very large carter, the dark patch to the left of center of the image is Mare Orientale, which is just barely visible on the edge of the Moon from Earth, from our point of view it's on the "side". It's eastern ridge is visible from Earth but we don't really see the dark mare itself.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yo I've had to explain to way too many people lately that the far side isn't "dark". When there's a new moon the light is on the other side....

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 19 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Hint:

Far Side ≠ Dark Side

It can be confusing because the far side of the Moon is sometimes also referred to as the Dark Side because it is "dark" to us, in the sense that we cannot see it from Earth.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, dark in the same meaning as "the dark ages." It's referring to a lack of knowledge, not a lack of light. Both these terms have fallen out of favor though.

[–] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 10 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I get that she's an English major, but how is that an excuse to not know that cameras typically have a flash so they can illuminate the object being photographed?

[–] BigDiction@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Philosophy dipshit here. How does a flash of light illuminate an object that big and far away?

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 1 points 7 minutes ago

Philosophy shithead here!

A 15,000,000,000,000 bulb, of course!

But how could we know that that object illuminated by a 15,000,000,000,000 Lumen bulb is even real? For all you know, that massive object illuminated by a 15,000,000,000,000 Lumen bulb could be a fiction, a simple 15,000,000,000,000 Lumen shadow upon the wall!

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

pretty sure that was a joke

[–] BigDiction@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 4 points 31 minutes ago

I legit thought you were continuing the joke.

[–] Nomorereddit@lemmy.today 3 points 2 hours ago

A screenshot from twitter is not a meme.

[–] VeryInterestingTable@jlai.lu 45 points 5 hours ago

If you blink really fast the heat generated by your eyelids makes a very bright light that is very similar to sun rays.

Fortunately for us the 4 astronauts were very well train with this technique so they each took turns at lighting up the moon while the others took photographs.

In other news it was probably not a good idea to call it the dark side of the moon hence why it's refer to as the far side of the moon.

Good luck with the blinking, stay hydrated.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 1 hour ago

The flash of the camera

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 31 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

This make me sad, English major or otherwise. I mean, you can look up at the moon and see when the far side is at least partially illuminated.

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

One Pink Floyd album and now we have to deprogram everyone's misconceptions

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

"There is no dark side of the moon. As a matter of fact it's all dark" - last lyric on DSoTM.

[–] sik0fewl@piefed.ca 11 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

But you can’t see the far side from earth…

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Earth isn't a source of light.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

Well, it is a pretty poor indirect source. Just like the moon lighting things at night by reflecting the sun, Earth does the same.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 hours ago

Right - so?

[–] tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 2 points 2 hours ago

No one tell her.

[–] commonmarmoset@reddthat.com 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

“If the Naomi be Klein/ you’re doing just fine./ If the Naomi be Wolf/ Oh, buddy. Ooooof.”

Jumped a little when I saw the name.

[–] derek@infosec.pub 1 points 1 hour ago

I was ignorant but curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf

She's got a Doctorate of Philosophy in English Literature from Oxford, is a feminist author, and conspiracy theorist. At a glance I can understand why she's developed a reputation of a certain color.

Care to share any specific grievances?

[–] raman_klogius@ani.social 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

This is what your get when you keep referring to it as the "dark side". Ignoramuses beget ignoramuses.

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 16 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Is this satire, or is she genuinely confused?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 15 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I'm half confused. Light source - the sun, just take it when the moon is in it's new moon phase (side facing earth is dark, side facing sun is light).

But the moon is tidally locked to earth, we always see the same side, so what is taking the photo?

Artemis II visited while the far side was dark, so I guess this is an old tweet otherwise why would NASA be releasing it now?

Happy to be told I'm dumb if I got something wrong...

[–] generallynonsensical@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I want to make a 2001:ASO reference so bad, with your username and the context and all, but I can't for the life of me muster any cleverness. I also would love to know the answer. So let's be dumb together, Dave.

Edit: Solar eclipse! Thanks someone further down the thread. Looked it up and ut appears they had a 54-minute solar eclipse and 40 minutes of radio silence. Must have been amazing.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 6 points 3 hours ago

Well I am a step closer to the answer. Here a similar photo taken on the Artemis II mission with the same identifying features: https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009212

In this fully illuminated view of the Moon, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible on the right. It is identifiable by the dark splotches that cover its surface. These are ancient lava flows from a time early in the Moon’s history when it was volcanically active. The large crater west of the lava flows is Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the Moon’s near and far sides. Orientale's left half is not visible from Earth, but in this image we have a full view of the crater. Everything to the left of the crater is the far side, the hemisphere we don’t get to see from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that it orbits round us.

Long story short, like 3/4 of what is in this photo is the near side of the moon.

As a side note, the coloured image on the left of the OP appears to be this image that reddit detectives have decided was edited by OP. No one has found that coloured version on any NASA release.

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 17 points 4 hours ago

Just an english major trying to science

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 11 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

She did say she "was an English major"

Hello, ill-informed, nice to meet you.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

They had the high beams on, duh... 🙄

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 3 points 4 hours ago

This one actually made my brain stutter for a few minutes. I couldn't tell whether I'm the dumb one or they.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Ok, you're ill-informed.

[–] Bonsoir@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

It's because they took the photo during a solar eclipse, of course!

[–] MidnightPocket@hexbear.net 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

RETVRN TO HELIOCENTRISM (nah fuck that doesn't work either)

[–] VapeNoir@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago

The moon is made of concentrated aether, duh