The Dark Side Of The Moon Revealed

One side of the Moon cannot be seen from Earth. However, one of the twin GRAIL spacecraft launched by Nasa last September has returned its first video of the Moon’s hidden side after being pulled into orbit at New Year.

The video footage reveals that it is the oldest part of the moon, all the way from north to south poles, revealing a landscape scarred by countless collisions with comets and asteroids.

It also shows a 93 mile (149km) wide Drygalski crater, which features a star-shaped formation in its centre and can be seen to the left of centre near the bottom of the screen as the video reaches the south pole.

The footage was taken as part of a project for middle school students, who will pick out areas such as craters which they want to study in more detail, and is intended to inspire the next generation of space scientists.

(MS)