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WHAT IS THE 'DARK SIDE' OF THE MOON?

The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth. 

The far side of the Moon was first observed in 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned the first images.  

In 1968, astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft were the first humans to set eyes on the far side in person as they orbited the moon.

Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side. 

That includes NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft, which imaged the far side from a distance of 31 million miles (49m km) in 2008.

This relatively unexplored region is mountainous and rugged, making a successful landing much harder to achieve. 

China's Chang'e-4 mission that landed in January 2019 was the first to touch down on the surface of the far side.

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