Cosmology Views
China claimed to have taken many images of the Moon's far side.
I was curious whether there are noticeable differences to the near side.
Background for the first image:
Tycho is the well known, bright crater on the Moon with distinct rays and a central peak on the flat floor with roughly vertical walls around the circumference.
As Ralph Juergens suggested in the 1970's, Tycho was electrically machined by an electrical current pair which, while twisting, carved the flat floor and the walls with a consistent radius but the gap between the filaments left the central peak.
The initial discharge resulted in the rays when surface electrons were drawn to the discharge point.
On the far side in this image, there is no dominant crater like Tycho.
Instead there are many round craters with flat floors and no central peak and no rays. I will call this a frequent Flat Floor Crater, or just FFC.
Roughly to the right of center is a vertical line of 4 FFC.
The top 1 of the 4 has 2 smaller FFC in a line to its lower right.
The second from the top also has 2 smaller FFC to its lower right, but these 3 FFC have no space between rims.
Above and to the right is a large round crater with a flat floor and a peak, but no rays.
Below that crater, to the right of the vertical 4, is a vertical line of 6 FFC.
At the far top right there is a line of about 5 FFC.
At the far bottom left is a bright crater with 2 associated rays. Despite the rays this crater lacks the depth of Tycho.
Near the bottom is a roughly horizontal line of 6 FFC.
Observation:
This far side image reveals many craters whose electrical discharge machined a circle but not to a substantial depth.
Roughly in the center of the image are 3 flat plains with no prominent craters. However the bottom plain has associated features including FFC on its right edge and on its lower left edge. To its left is a small rayed crater which has some depth but not enough depth for a flat floor.
With this image resolution we are missing the many small craters seen on the near side having a sharp circular rim.
First image:
I found a second image which is much the same as the first for the curious. The one noticeable difference is the dark area near the top. This does not look like the flat plains on the near side which are not this dark.
I can only wonder when more far side images will be available.
from NASA: The Clementine mission mapped most of the lunar surface at a number of resolutions and wavelengths from UV to IR.
However, from Wikipedia:
Clementine (officially called the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE)) was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO, previously the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, or SDIO) and NASA.
We probably won't see all the images from Clementine.
second image:
