AIBU to say the moon doesn’t have a dark side

[OhBeAFineGuyKissMe]

As the title says the moon doesn’t have a dark side - that is a Pink Floyd album. The moon rotates similar to the Earth, but has a day length about 28 Earth days. So all sides will get sunlight,

One side does always faces us (gravitationally tidally locked) and we only see one side, so there is a far side, which very, very few humans have actually seen in person.

It came up a few times on the Artemis thread and I just wanted to get that off my chest.

It’ll be interesting to see how many people on this thread think one side of the moon is constantly in the dark, because I wasn’t aware that anyone did think that.

And as others said, calling the side of the moon we can’t see the ‘dark side’ is definitely not something pink Floyd came up with.

I still stand by the fact some people do really think one side is permanently dark.

Well it really is from our point of view!! 🙄

I'm probably thick but I always thought the meaning other people give it, as in the side we don't see, was derived from the fact that the sun can't shine on both sides of the moon at the same time. So half of it is in darkness at any one time, like the earth, ie. some of the earth is dark while it's daytime for us in the UK. (Using UK coz that's where I live, but it's just relative.) Then when it's dark in the UK, it's daylight in some other countries. The moon revolves like the earth does, just slower. But the sun can't shine on (or maybe it's more correct to say "can't be reflected off") the whole moon all the time. So one side is always dark at any one time. But the actual area of the moon that's in darkness is always slowly changing because it revolves.

I told you I was thick 😂

Apparently, the idea that the moon is made of green cheese is yet another scurrilous rumour

Is it a coincidence that a moon day is 28 earth days aka a woman's cycle

It's an easy and commonplace way of describing the side of the moon we never see. That's all. Everyone has access to Google and if interested can look it up.

Never mind pink Floyd the first thing i thought of was the classic song from Mulan as @WhatAMarvelousTune mentions.
"As mysterious as the dark side of the mooooooonnn"
Which i will now be singing all day!

One of the engineers organising the mission described it as going to the dark side of the moon, so I'll take their word for it thanks rather than some random buzzkiller on the internet.

😀😀

The weird thing was, I had no idea there was going to be a moon mission until yesterday morning, and I spontaneously listened to The Dark Side of the Moon on Saturday having not played it for years. And it wasn't a Spotify suggestion, it just popped into my head.

You never know. People said that about Philip Schofield and look how that turned out….

I'm with you OP. I assumed "dark side" meant part of the surface was in constant darkness. Why else use the term "dark side" if it's not scientifically correct? "Far side" is easier to understand.

I wonder of people who think the dark side of the moon refers only to actual darkness and doesn't mean "unknown", also think that the Dark Ages didn't have a lot of light at the time..?

I'm going with coincidence. Only about 13% women actually have a 28 day cycle. Also if it were influenced by the moon, one would assume everyone would be in sync with the moon, and therefore with each other, which isn't the case.

Probably worth looking up tidal locking. We only ever see the exact same half of the moon, the other side looks very different. The moon rotates on its own axis at the same rate as the Earth so we literally do only see one side.

From NASA. So probably accurate.

You are however being very patronising!

From our pov there is a dark side though - the side which never faces the earth and therefore from here is never lit by the sun.

Quite!

Like Conrad's book, The Heart Of Darkness. it means the unknown. Sort of Here Be Dragons but for space.