BEHOLD the magnificent lunar backside in our MOON VIDEO

NASA has stitched together images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to produce a stunning video showing what the moon looks like from The Other Side. NASA video - A View From The Other Side It shows that there are many more, and larger craters than on the side which faces the Earth. What it doesn’t have is the large dark …

[No Quarter]

That's no moon

I wrote it, so you don't have to.

[knarf]

Image one

Is that not the sign of the Cybermen in Dr Who (or the Cidermen I used to call them as a kid)

[Bill Gates]

What is that big black rectangle sticking out of the surface on the other side of the moon?

[Bill Gates]

What is that big black rectangle sticking out of the surface on the other side of the moon!?!

[Shrimpling]

Tycho is on the Earth side not the far side...

[AbelSoul]

As a matter of fact, Gerry, it's not all dark

Ah, Mr O'Driscoll.

"There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun."

They don't make them like that anymore.

[Sludged]

Obviously...

... someone has photo-shopped out the secret Nazi moon base.

[Graham Marsden]

Re: Obviously...

... and the World War II Bomber

Oh, no, hang on, that disappeared again, didn't it?

[WraithCadmus]

Musical accompaniment

Do these images sync up perfectly with The Wizard of Oz OST?

[DJV]

Where are...

...the dustbin lids and music trees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another triumph!!

Industrial Light & Magic have delivered the goods again, bravo.

[Anonymous Coward]

From your photo...

...has the Moon developed a hemorrhoid....that lump does look nasty!

[RosslynDad]

Wrong Units

"roughly the size of Northern and Southern Ireland combined"

How did this get past the El Reg subbies? What is this in standard Wales units?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Wrong Units

3.38 according to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28area+Ireland%29%2F%28area+wales%29&dataset=&equal=Submit

ps. how the fsck do you enter a link ?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Wrong Units

"ps. how the fsck do you enter a link ?"

Just type the HTML tags as normal :-)

[thomas k.]

No alien and/or secret Nazi bases?

Were they airbrushed out?

[harmjschoonhoven]

Earth seen behind Moon

It is always good to see in an animation that the Earth rotates in the right direction. It seems animators give it a 50% change.

Goddard may have forgotten, but here on Earth we have weather.

[Mage]

Dark Side

I always called it the Far Side.

I think it does get slightly less sunshine than the near side, but I'm not sure.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Dark Side

I'd have thought the far side would get slightly more sunshine than the near side because the near side is sometimes in shadow during a lunar eclipse. But I'm no astronomer so please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Dark Side

Either that, or it has something to do with the dynamic friction of the tensor light cone on The Far Side™.

[P. Lee]

Re: Dark Side

>I always called it the Far Side.

So its a choice between scuba gear breathing and dumb fat kids/cockroaches/cows?

Meh, 'tis funny either way!

[TheProf]

Unknown

Dark as in 'unknown' not dark as in 'unlit'. The same way Africa used to be called the Dark Continent.

Sorry, I know, boring comment.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Unknown

Or like Paddington's original home in Peru.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure...

...I spotted Pink Floyd improvising with dustbin lids.

(Non-Brits just move along).

[Andy The Hat]

South Pole-Aitken basin is one of the oldest things in the Solar System ... and was found in 1959.

I think that makes it nearly as old as my mum. She'll be glad to know she's officially now the oldest thing in the Solar System ...

[Will Godfrey]

Shick! Horror!

Does Ms May know about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

dull interstellar action

How nice , anyway whats happened to the latest fancy fandango mars lander?. cos bbc seem to have lost interest.

In fact its also interesting to note that some sort of warp drive wessel from earth will speed past that voyager probe before its even a 3rd (optimistic and flattering guess) of the way to anywhere. maybe.

[Terry Cloth]

Ireland is pretty damn' big!

Roughly 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi) in diameter and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) deep, roughly the size of Northern and Southern Ireland combined.

Since the U.S. is, to a first approximation, 3 000 miles wide by 1 000 miles deep, all I can say is ``Wow!''

Who knew?