The Moon's hidden face was photographed for the first time
On this day · 7 October 1959
A small Soviet probe swung behind the Moon and sent home grainy proof of a hemisphere no human had ever seen.
On October 7, 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 captured the first photographs of the far side of the Moon — the hemisphere permanently turned away from Earth. The first image was taken at 03:30 UT from about 63,500 kilometers above the surface, and over roughly 40 minutes the spacecraft snapped 29 pictures covering about 70 percent of the unseen face.
The photos were grainy and noisy, and were radioed back to Earth only weeks later as Luna 3’s orbit brought it closer. Yet they revealed something striking: the far side lacked the large dark maria, the cooled lava plains that dominate the side we see.
By photographing it first, the Soviets earned the right to name its features.
That is why much of the far side’s nomenclature honors Russian figures, including the prominent crater Tsiolkovsky, named for the rocketry pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
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