I understand that moon is tidally locked to the earth and we never see the other side (side facing away from earth). I suppose that’s called far side, but is it also the dark side? Also is there any overlap between dark side and the lunar poles?
In: 0
Well, we’re going to have to get into prescriptivism vs. descriptivism here.
Properly speaking, the Moon has a dark side in exactly the same way the Earth does–at any given moment, half of it is facing away from the Sun and is therefore dark. What it does not have is a side that is *always* dark.
It does have a side that is always facing away from the Earth, properly referred to as the “far side.” When the Moon is full, the far side is also the dark side. (When the Moon is new, the near side is the dark side.)
The Moon’s axis is minimally tilted, so one of the poles is slightly in the dark at any given time (well, at the equinoxes, both poles are right at the edge of the dark).
All of the above is the prescriptivist approach. If you go for descriptivist, you’re going with how people use the wording, and in fact many people do refer to the far side as the dark side.
I generally tend to a descriptivist approach to language, but with technical terms, I prefer prescriptivism, and since my degree is in planetary science, this is one case where I strongly prefer it.
Latest Answers