Thread by @DrPhiltill

I'm choosing to annoy my fellow science nerds with this statement: I like the term "Dark side of the Moon." It was always "dark" in the sense that we lacked knowledge of it, not that it lacked sunlight. We allll know this & don't need to be nerd-splained, right? 😝 Also... /1

2/ ...the dark side of the Moon stopped being dark in 1959 when the Soviets flew Luna 3 around it and sent home some pictures. So the Moon used to have a dark side, but it doesn't any more. Right? 👊😅 But to be more accurate...

3/...really, we have barely explored either side at all. There's so much we don't know, even from the side where most of the missions landed. So shouldn't we say the Moon has twoooo dark sides: the Slightly Darker Dark Side, and the Slightly More Illuminated Dark Side?

4/ So when news reports say the Chinese lander went to the dark side of the Moon, we allll know that this means it went to the Slightly Darker dark side, which is super dark even as the sun shines down.

A quote from Shakespeare...

5/5 "Madman, thou errest. I say, there is no darkness but ignorance...

"I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as dark as hell...I am no more mad than you are."😅

Here is someone's blog, a history of the dark side of the Moon: scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/20…