Near side of the Moon

As moon front page or erdzugewandte side of the moon, the visible from the Earth part of the lunar surface is referred to.

As a result of two effects of libration ( tilt and elliptical shape of the lunar orbit ) the visible hemisphere at any given time is not exactly the same, so that by and by about 59 % of the lunar surface are visible from Earth. The from the earth usually not visible half is called the moon back.

Located on the edge of the Moon front side structures that are not readily observable, but only with certain combinations of moon phase and web position. They appear also heavily distorted and are therefore difficult to see. Also flattened or eroded structures can hardly be identified by further strikes, so some quite large craters were clearly visible only on information supplied from space probes such as the Lunar Orbiter images.

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