Mystery of moon’s farside solved

Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have solved the mystery of why no ‘face’ exists on farside of the moon which is turned away from the Earth. The ‘Man in the moon’ appeared when meteoroids struck Earth-facing side of the moon creating large flat seas of basalt that we see as dark areas called maria. But no ‘face’ exists on farside of the moon and now, Penn State astrophysicists think they know why.

‘I remember the first time I saw a globe of the moon as a boy, being struck by how different the farside looks. It was all mountains and craters. Where were the maria?’ said Jason Wright, assistant professor of astrophysics.

This mystery is called the Lunar Farside Highlands Problem. Wright, Steinn Sigurdsson, professor of astrophysics and Arpita Roy, graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics, and lead author of the study, realised that the absence of maria, which is due to a difference in crustal thickness between the side of the moon we see and the hidden side, is a consequence of how the moon 

originally formed.