“The moon has a permanent "dark side" that never receives any sunlight at all.”

It's a common misconception that one half of the moon exists in perpetual shadow, forever hidden from the sun's rays. This idea likely stems from the popular phrase "dark side of the moon," which has permeated culture and led many to believe that one hemisphere is permanently unilluminated. However, this isn't true, and the moon does not have a side that never sees sunlight.

Scientifically, the moon rotates on its axis, just as Earth does. This rotation ensures that over the course of its lunar day, all parts of the moon are exposed to sunlight. What people often confuse with a "dark side" is actually the "far side" of the moon. Due to a phenomenon called tidal locking, the moon always presents the same face to Earth. This means we never see the far side directly from our planet, leading to the mistaken belief that it must be eternally dark.

The reason this myth persists is largely due to our perspective and the misleading terminology. Because we only ever observe one face of the moon from Earth, it's easy to assume the other side is always hidden and, by extension, always dark. The term "dark side" vividly implies a lack of light, reinforcing the misunderstanding, even though the far side experiences its own cycle of day and night, just like the side we see.

In reality, both the near side and the far side of the moon experience roughly two weeks of daylight followed by two weeks of night as the moon completes its orbit around Earth. So, while one side is always facing away from our planet, it is certainly not always dark. The "dark side" is a myth; the "far side" is simply the part of the moon we can't observe from home.