MEXICO: The space agency released the images to give us a look for the very first time at its shrouded surface.
It look five years to produce the animation, which uses mapping data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to generate the images.
“It lacks the large dark spots, called maria, that make up the familiar Man in the Moon on the near side,” a Nasa spokesman said.
“Instead, craters of all sizes crowd together over the entire far side.
“The far side is also home to one of the largest and oldest impact features in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin.”
Unlike the Earth-facing hemisphere, the dark side of the moon has far less ‘lunar maria’ – vast, smooth landscapes – and therefore can be seen to have far more craters.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched in 2009 from Florida.
Since then it has beamed back hundreds of terabytes of data, giving scientists the ability to develop the images.
The first images of the dark side of the moon were first seen in 1959 after being taken by a Soviet lunar probe.
