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  • 7/4/2025
The near and far side of the moon look totally different. Why is that?!?

Look at this...

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#shorts #moon #animation #space #deep #astrophysics
Transcript
00:00The near side and the far side of the moon look totally different.
00:03Why is that?
00:04This is the near side.
00:05It's got all these dark spots.
00:06They're giant basins that used to be filled in with lava back when the moon was still cooling.
00:11Now look at the far side.
00:12It's weirdly clear.
00:13No big basins, just tons of small craters sprinkled across it.
00:17Why?
00:17We also know from remote sensing and moon missions that the near side has a unique
00:21mixture of elements that the far side doesn't have.
00:23And then on the far side, there's this.
00:26A large basin on the south pole.
00:27It was created from an impact about 4 billion years ago.
00:31It is 2,500 kilometers across.
00:34That's the distance from Texas to Washington, D.C.
00:37Scientists think that an impact this big would have sent a massive wave of heat onto the near side.
00:41And with it, a bunch of heat producing elements that would have caused the mantle to melt and
00:45lava to flow and would explain all of these unique elements that we see on the near side.
00:50If you learned something, subscribe.

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