Is there a dark side of the moon?

we shouldn't do that song out. Yeah, I was like, man, I love it. Yeah, where you like that was out of sight? I thought it was totally groovy, and like the audience didn't like it, or I think the rest of the band felt like it was. You know, there's a bunch of songs we do just in the basement for our own fun, and then there's you know, the songs that we'll do in front of people twice a year. You guys do yakety sex in the base. I wish did you see Dolly Partner played that live at the

Huge Festival and she did a good job. Yeah, it was it. Bonorue right, No, it was that the one is it Glastonbury in the UK? Dolly Parton doing yakety sacks playing the saxophone at Glastonbury, Like, who would have thunk that? Whatever? She had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand. Yes, she's putting out a new album that, um she's calling her gay friendly dance album. Yeah, there's a is it the name of the album or the name of the track is just a wee bit

gay or something like that. I think that's one of Oh. I thought that's just how she described it. Is that the name of one of the songs. I don't know. It wasn't quote, but I couldn't tell if that was because it was a title or quote. Well, she's got a huge following in the gay community, and she's she's embraces it fully. Yes she does. And there's always been rumors about her. Oh I don't think those are correct. Well, I mean it doesn't mean there are rumors out there.

She has a long, long term husband. Yeah, she's been married for like fifty years. But um, I think the fact that he's like, try and find a picture of this guy. He's a total recluse and she just says, that's just the nature of our relationship. Have you been to um It's like the Oprah thing. She has a really close girlfriend, and everyone's like, oh, well, of course Oprah and gayl are gay. Have you been You can't be friends lifelong friends with someone of the same sex.

Have you been to Dollywood? Not? Still, you should go to Dollywood. There's a Dolly part museum that's part of Dollywood that's like worth the admission by itself. Can you just go to the museum. There's no reason to just go to the museum, but yeah you could. I mean, like it's worth going just for the museum. But then when you exit the museum, you've got all the rest of Dollywood to go hang out at, which is substantial, like she updated it. And there's roller coasters, which I

don't ride. You don't ride roller coasters at all? No, you mean I went with some friends and like everybody else is riding roller coasters, and we were just like, that's okay. Have you never ridden all ridden roller coasters before? But I've gotten the point in my life where I'm like, I don't feel like being terrified out of my mind right now. So that's the reason. All right, the dark

side of the moon is off the bang and start. Yeah, who'd have thought Dolly Partner would make an appearance in this one, Dolly park So there there, Chuck, We're talking about the dark side of the moon. And it turns out there is such thing as the dark side of the moon, but it's just misused in the popular vernacular. The idea of the dark side of the moon is that there's another side of the moon that we never see,

and it's dark. It's out there, exposed to the cold chill of space, and um, the dark side of the moon is the side of the moon we never see, the one that faces opposite our per view. There is a side of the moon that we don't see. Right, We're going to go ahead and called at the Far side of the Moon. Yes, And I think that song would be equally as cool. I was thinking about it if it was I'll see you on the far side of the Moon. Yeah, that's even like a little more

psychedelic if you ask me. Yeah, because of the whole far out thing. I don't know it resonated. In fact, in the basement, I'm gonna start singing that you are you gonna adapt it. Okay, there you go, just not out never again. So there is a far side of the moon. There is the side of the moon that we don't see. People are correct in assuming that, Um, But and there is a dark side of the moon. And sometimes the dark side of the moon and the far side of the moon are one and the same,

but sometimes they're not. Yeah, it gets a little confusing, But everything I just said is true. Yeah, And it's our job to get you to wrap your heads around this, like we had to, yeah, because it's extraordinarily confusing. It's almost like, why couldn't just the popular conception be correct? Because this is kind of difficult until you wrap your head around it and then it's easy. But it is. It is hard at first. Everybody, so buckling, tie your shoes on tight. Yeah, maybe pack a granola bar and

let's get down to this alright. So I guess we can start by saying that the moon, um is not like the sun. It doesn't generate that warm, lovely glow itself that you see. I think most people know at this point, UM, that that is reflection from the sun. And the moon is really big, and that's why it looks super bright. It's not really very reflective, but it's large. It is, so on a dark, dark night, a full moon looks really super bright because it's big. Yeah, and

that's from sunshine sunshining on the moon. That's what makes the moon glow to us. There's also something called earth shine, and when there's no sunshine hitting the moon, as far as we can see, uh this, the Earth is still reflecting light on it. And they've recently found out that the moon if you can somehow and they figured out how to using radio telescopes, subtract any kind of sunlight

interference and just isolate the earth shine. If you could just see that, then what you would be seeing is a kind of dark turquoise cobalt blue moon. Yeah. So technically the dark side of the moon is turquoise. Yes, and they have figured that out for the first time. Was it It was just this year, right, it was published. So that's exciting new news because they tried for a long time, that's right, but it took some smart people

and people used to be dumb. Yes, So there is a there is a side of the moon, like we said, that we just don't see. And you would think, well, that's because the moon orbits the Earth right, which it does. And so if the Moon is just sitting there stationary orbiting around the Earth, of course we're going to see the same side all the time. That's a fallacy, that's

right as a or a fact. If the Moon orbited the Earth and didn't rotate around its own axis, right, we would see all sides of the Moon at some point during that lunar orbit, which we call a month. And you can test this by just getting a tennis ball and keeping it still and rotating it around your hand and pretend your hand is Earth, and you would see at some point the Earth would see all sides of that tennis ball. The trick is the Moon rotates on its own axis at the same rate that it

rotates around in orbit. And so now if you take that tennis ball and well you'd have to be pretty precise to spin it, but if you could spin it at the same rate that you're going around, you would notice. And there's a handy animation on this article on how stuff works dot Com. I thought it was a little fast and all at it to actually I think they need to go in and slow that thing down a

little bit. It's handy and fast, but you would notice that if it's spinning on its own ax us at the same rate that it'sn't spinning in orbit, then you're going to see that same side. And it's kind of it seems like a miracle, but it's not. It's a mind boggling colossal cosmological coincidences coincidence. Okay, well then I'm hoping you can explain this to me, because Chuck, what you've just said, I think it bears repeating the the the Moon's orbit around Earth last twenty nine point five days.

That's right. The Moon also rotates on its axis. That rotation you know, the Earth rotates on its axis that lasts about twenty four hours. We call it a day. The moon rotates on its texas, so it has the day too, but it's day last twenty nine point five days.

So the Moon's rotation on its own axis and its orbit around Earth are the same, which is why no matter where you are on Earth, you can't see anything but the near side of the Moon because even though it's rotating on its axis, it's revolving in orbit at the same speed at the same rate around the Earth. So you will never see anything but the near side. Should we say this a third time? This was what this was what got me the most. That's why I'm saying it again, like this is this is mind boggling

to me. So there's a day side of the moon and a night side of the moon, just like there was on Earth. Your son's gonna if you built a little moon lunar cabin, which would be great by the way. Yeah, you would see a sunrise in a sunset. I don't know if it would look exactly the same. Well, it would take a month. Yeah, it would be a very

slow sunrise and a very slow sunset. What to us is a month, a lunar month, right, which involves the four phases of the moon, the waxing, the waning that give us the crescent, the full, the new, all that jazz, the super Yeah. Um that to the moon is a day. Yeah.

So our whole concept of there being a far side of the moon and dark side of the moon and phases of the moon to the moon that it's just like, hey man, this is just a day to me, I'm just the moon right, reflecting light because just like over the course of twenty four hours on Earth, different parts of the Earth are exposed to the sunlight over the course of twenty nine point five days. Thanks to the rotation of the Moon, different parts of the Moon are

exposed to sunlight. So that far side of the Moon that we never see because of the rotation and the orbit being the same for the Moon still gets bathed in sunlight for two weeks out of the year. Yeah, and sometimes we're we're seeing the night side, sometimes we're seeing the day side. It just depends on when it happens to fall during that lunar day. There's not the same thing as our day. It is confusing. That's why

I said it twice but not a third time. Uh well, I guess we should explain a little something about gravity. And we did cover this. Um we did something on the tides, right title bulge. Yeah, he's at a video at least once we've discussed it and now we've done it at some point. The reason that everything is uh in synchronicity like that is because of gravity. It's because Earth is exerting gravitational pull on the Moon and it's

locked it in with us. But the Moon's doing the same thing to us, and it's also getting further away from us. About an inch and a half a year. I think one point for eight inches per year. Uh, And that's what causes title bulge. The gravitational force on us causes the title bulge on the near side when uh, the Moon has the greatest poll so water is going to be pulled toward the Moon and inertia is overcome

by gravity. And on the far side the opposite is true, but they're both bulges when when it's at its nearest point in orbit, and it's for this point in orbit, right, So if the Moon is moving further away from us by one point four eight inches per year, that means millions and billions of years from now things are going to be completely different. Yeah. Like a billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted eighteen hours, and I think

the month was twenty days long days. Yeah, And then now, thanks to gravity and the effect of the Moon on Earth and vice versa, the earth rotation is slowing right. Yeah, And eventually I think in a billion or two years um, the day is expected to be about forty current Earth days long. Yeah, it says, uh, yeah, forty days. So that's interesting. I've never thought about that in terms of the evolution of mankind. Uh, not many people, not doing a whole lot, not a lot going on short days.

Now everyone's populating the planet longer days and longer days. It's all coincidental, I'm sure. Yeah. I wonder what impact it would have on our sleep cycle if you still have one a billion years from now. Yeah, all right, So coming up in just a second, we're going to talk about the phases of the moon, because there's some misconceptions about that too. So, Chuck, were you had promised everyone that we would talk about the phases of the moon. I think that's called a tease. I think you should

deliver on it. Oh yeah, well, I think well. Strickland Jonathan Strickland of tech Stuff wrote this article, by the way that we're working from um and there are some misconceptions about the phases of the moon, he thinks, and I agree. UM. One is that a new moon occurs when the Earth is blocking light from the Sun. And if you're just a dumb human like me and you look up and see a new moon, that's sort of

what it looks like. It looks like the Earth is blocking it the Sun because you can almost see the shadow like clearly, that's what's going on, right, but it's not true because the moon is actually in between the Earth and the Sun at that point, which makes it impossible when when the moon is full, the Earth is

between the Sun and the moon. Right, you're saying, well, no, no no, I'll say during a new moon, the moon is between the Sun and the Earth exactly, But for a full moon, the Earth is between the Sun and the moon. So both of them are kind of counterintuitive, but they make sense when you remember that the whole reason the moon glows is because of its exposure to sunlight. Right, So if the moon, if we see the side that's being exposed to sunlight, that means that the Earth is

between the Sun and the moon. That's right, right, because that's the only way we could see that part exposed the sunlight. But if the moon between the Sun and the Earth, and the side that's being exposed to sunlight is the opposite side of the moon, the far side of the moon, so of course we couldn't see that.

So that's what the new moon is. Yeah, And Jonathan he broke it down in another pretty easy way to understand, Like if you're if you're sitting in a room and someone and there's only a single light source like a spotlight. Let's say, and someone walks in between the light and you, you're gonna see a silhouette of them, but you're not going to be able to see their detail, right, But if you could somehow get behind them, right, you would see that their back is bathed in that light exactly. Now,

if they walk behind you, you're both facing the sunlight. Yeah, so if you can just kind of make your eye travel around the side of your head to the back and poke out through your hair there, you would see that that person is a full moon, that's right, and the initial one when they are between you, when you see their silhouette, that is the new moon. So it makes sense when you think about it that way. I

think it does. Or if you look at this illustration that's helpful to it definitely is like this is lunar phases. Is definitely one where it's like, just look at a picture. Yeah, it's so much easier to see. Yeah. The irony of this whole thing is is that thanks to the phases of the moon, this lunar day um that the dark side of the moon is sometimes the side that we can see. Yeah, that's the one that blows my mind a bit, you know, it's during a new moon, like

we're still seeing the near side of the moon. That's all we'll ever see side that has the man in the moon or the rabbit making mochi in the moon. That's a Japanese thing. It's like their version of the man in the moon. It's a rabbit making mochi, which is like some sweet, sticky rice treats. And is it something that they see in the moon. Yeah, And what you're seeing are the lunar seas, like the Sea of Tranquility,

all that stuff. And with the well, I guess with the advent of the Soviet Luna three spacecraft, that was the first time we ever saw the far side of the moon. And that was I think in nineteen and that crazy, so that long ago we were that advanced. Yeah, it is, And if you're into that, you should go listen to her how the space race worked episode that

was a good one because Russia was advanced too. But these photos sent back from the Soviets showed that the far side of the moon didn't look anything like the near side of the moon that we see. It was all just little pockmark craters. There weren't any like sea of tranquility or anything like that. And for a long time it posed this this riddle called the lunar far side Highlands problem. Why was the far side of the

Moon so different from the near side. So they finally recently think that they came up with the riddle, like recently, like this year, um or the answer to the riddle. They came up with the riddle after But the the reason being that the side of the Moon, the near side that's closest to us, has been locked what's called tidally locked. It's the whole reason that we have this

whole why this whole podcast is going on. Because the Moon and the Earth are locked into orbit, right, and because they effect one another through gravity, decide that's closest to Earth, um was subject to Earth's gravity more than the other side. So as the Moon cooled and the Earth was cooling, but it was still super hot, it was heating the side of the Moon that was closest to us, right, that makes sense. So on the far side, as the Moon cooled, the crust was thicker and sturdier.

On the near side the crust is a little thinner. So as the Moon was still cooling, it got blasted with asteroids and meteorites and all that jazz. And on the side that's closest to us, the thinner crust side, lava float up from those meteor impacts and formed things like the Sea of Tranquility. On the other side, the crust was thicker, so no lava flowed up from it. Interesting, that's what they have to explain it. I wonder if there's any value in exploring the far side of the Moon,

or if that would just make a great movie. I mean, they're they're talking about to mean that. I don't know what the value is though. Yeah, and with the way that funding is we've talked about with NASA's going, I doubt if it's a priority, but that would make a

good movie because one creepy thing about it. It made me think of space movies and such as that you lose radio contact on the far side of the Moon, so the movie version, obviously you would have to sign off and go dark for a period of time, and that's when like the event horizon occurs. What was the well, the event horizon, that's like, yeah, that's not the real thing. Sam Neil goes crazy. Yeah, something happens creepy on that other side, right, was that in that movie Moon with

the Sam Rockwell, what the far side of the moon? Yeah? What was the movie where the guys like racing to get out of the um nightfall on the moon? Because like the sunrise? I think that was Moon. Okay, but we'll hear about it if it's not. I like that movie. That's a good one, fantastic. Yeah. I think David Bowie soun directed that. Yeah, Duncan Bowie his name, it's Duncan something. Oh he took because David Bowie's not even his real name.

Probably No, I don't think that. Zky start us right, Duncan started us to his name, and he's from the moon. Anything else I do? I have one more thing? Um, it turns out that we can see more than just the near side of the moon sometimes. All right, how's that? Well, because the orbit of the Moon around the Earth isn't a perfect circle, it's elliptical. Um, when it's furthest away, we can see an extra eight degrees of the eight

of the eastern side. And when it's um no, when it's closest to us, I'm sorry, and then when it's further away, we can see an extra about eight degrees of the western side, And I think we didn't mention um. We said that if you if you stopped that tennis ball, we would see all sides of the Moon. But even if it fell out of sink a little bit and slowed down or sped up a little bit, we would see portions of the Moon that we've never seen before exactly.

So this is why I'm like, we're you don't find it incredibly amazing that we're alive at a point in time when the Moon's rotational spin and it's orbit around Earth are completely the same? Who said that wasn't amazing? You don't think it's a coincidence. I don't. I think that's why. I think if that weren't true, then there wouldn't be Earth as we know it, right, Okay, so

you subscribe to the anthropic principle. What's that? Well, it basically says that things are the way they are because we're here to observe them, and if they weren't the way that they are, then we wouldn't be it wouldn't be possible for us to be here to observe them. Yeah, I think I've never heard of that but I think that makes a lot of sense to me. What about you,

I don't know. It kind of smacks of like intelligent intelligent design a little bit, you know, because it's basically saying, like the idea is that the universe is fine tuned to support life. But if we if that's the case, like why do we appear to be the only one out there? Oh? I don't think necessarily fine tuned. I think just lucky that things locked into support life. And that's another interpretation of it. Yeah, should we wake Jerry up and ask her? Jerry she has the answer. I

do recommend people go to the article. The article on the website is called what and Where is the Dark Side of the Moon? Yeah, because there is a very handy phases of the moon graphic and a super fast animation, so fast actually I think I got it. Wait, you know, and it's kind of small and you can't really see that spinning, So I'm going to retract my statement that it's super handy. It kind of stinks and it's stinky. But I bet you there's a YouTube out there that

that shows it in better colored, high graphic detail. And there's a YouTube out there, yeah that sound like an old man. I do have one more thing too. We're talking about billions of years um that the the the Earth and the Moon will have such an effect on on one another that the Earth's day will last forty current Earth days and that will also be the exact amount of time the Moon's orbit. So the lunar phase and the Earth day and a few billion years will

be one and the same forty days. And then apparently after that it's not going to change much. So it's they're both going towards some sort of equilibrium. Right. Sounds well, because the Earth day will be in lockstep with the lunar cycle. At that point, the shoe will be on the other foot, and when you're on the moon, you will only ever be able to see one side of the Earth, the United States side. Who knows, well, there

won't be a United States at that point. You don't know that three billion years the Earth is there will be no mankind. Don't kid yourself, it's quite possible. We we have to talk about the great filters sometime. I don't even know what that is. You're gonna love it. Is it a full podcast or is it definitely? Well? I think we have like a few we could break out of that one. I think you just threw down the gauntlets. That was a gauntlet, So Chuck, we just

did that. Yeah, I'm pretty happy, but I always feel lost, lost in space, like I'm hanging on by the skin of my teeth when we do these things. Well, you did great, thanks, But we always hear like really good feedback from astronomers. It turns out there very much non jerky right in, very forgiving, very forgiving, and very helpful, because I think they really want other people to understand and they're not including look how much we know that

you don't know. They're like, look how much you could know. They're not like proctologists, those jerks or soccer fans. Alright, so Chuck um, we are going to do a listener mail as usual, but it will be right after this message. Josh. Yeah, let's chat about squarespace, my friend. Okay, because if you need a website and you don't have one, there's really no easier way to do so, no, I mean, the

whole thing is dragon Drop is very intuitive. There's no need to learn how to use code, and in case you find yourself in a bit of a pickle, maybe even a bind. They have seven customer support so you can live chat with them twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Yeah, all that stuff is great, But what I love about it is it's beautiful. The designs are great. It's gonna look clean, it's gonna look professional. Everyone's gonna be tricked into thinking you're like a master

code or web designer. Yeah. And if you want to sell stuff and make some moneys, all plans have commerce options, from hosting an entire store to accepting donations for your personal blog. Plus chuck, you can get the whole thing risk free. Now, wow, that sounds pretty great. Risk free on your laptop, on your mobile device. It's gonna look great on your tablet. That sounds like an all in one solution to me. That's right, Like I said, risk free.

You can try squarespace. If you go to squarespace dot com slash stuff for your fourteen day trial with no credit card necessary. If you like the product, it costs as low as eight dollars a month and includes a free domain name if you sign up for a year. That's right to just use our offera code stuf to get that ten percent off your first purchase Okay, so

we're back. If you want to know more about the moon, you can type in dark side of the Moon or moon or whatever in the search bar how stuff works dot Com and we'll bring up this article and others in Since I said search bar, it is time, at long last for listener mail. I'm calling this cool Kid because we like to highlight cool kids that listen to the show because they are some of our favorite fans. Yeah, because they're not yet cynical. Hi guys, my name was Ethan.

I'm eleven years old. Uh. This is the first time I'm writing in even though I've been wanting to for eight months. There was nothing to talk about. Then, out of the blue, your podcast seemed to mostly match what I was doing and thinking. I was talking to my friend extensively about the space race, and you did a I left that this eleven year old is talking extensively about the space race in the nine fifties. Uh, and you guys did a podcast on that. I was wondering

about why sugar was so sweet and unhealthy. I was picking out a movie when I saw some that were unrated, and that got me thinking, when it's not unrated, who rates it? I think he means not rated. Uh. And the most recent I was playing Monopoly with my family, and since we only have been playing two hours per day, it stretched into a three day game and counting as of writing this email, it still isn't over. It's got to be over by now, though. That'd be horrific experience.

On the second day or podcast How Monopoly Works came out. If either of you were mind readers or have a mind reading device, please tell me that works. By the way, I have an old, old podcast correction to make. In the Magnets episode, you said that the second most powerful force in the universe's magnetism. The real answer is electro magnetism. And my source is how Stuff Works dot com. Oh cheeky, Ethan. It would really please me if you did a podcast

on electromagnet so I've always been fascinated by them. There are many uses listening for more stuff you should know, Ethan. PS. I'm using my mom's email smiley face. So I wrote Ethan's mom back and said, you know, don't have your permission to read this because he's a great, great kid. She said he would be delighted and so am. I. That's awesome. Thanks ethan, and thanks to your mom too

for letting us read your very spectacular listener mail. Thanks for the correction to absolutely We're so dumb, not magnetism, electromagnetism, and I'm taking his word. Well, if you're a cute kid and you want to correct us or just tell us high or whatever we want to hear from you, you can use mom's email or your dad's email, or you know, your legal guardians email and send in a hello. You could do that via Twitter at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com

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