“The dark side of the Moon is always dark”

It's a common misconception that one side of the Moon is perpetually shrouded in darkness. This idea likely stems from the popular phrase "the dark side of the Moon," which, while evocative, is a misnomer that has led to widespread confusion. The Moon does indeed have a "far side"—the hemisphere that never faces Earth due to synchronous rotation—but this far side is not inherently dark.

Scientifically, the Moon is a sphere orbiting the Sun, just like Earth. As it orbits, it also rotates on its own axis. This rotation ensures that over the course of a lunar month, all parts of the Moon's surface are exposed to sunlight. The "dark side" is simply the portion of the Moon experiencing night at any given moment, just as Earth has a night side. The far side of the Moon receives just as much sunlight over a full lunar cycle as the near side we see from Earth.

The persistent belief in a permanently dark side is largely due to the phenomenon of tidal locking. Because the Moon is tidally locked with Earth, it always presents the same face to us. This means we never see the far side directly from our planet, leading many to incorrectly assume that because it's out of our view, it must also be out of the Sun's light. In reality, astronauts and probes have photographed the far side bathed in sunlight, dispelling this enduring lunar myth.