The professional conspiracy theorists of the modern Internet who make their rent by venting some absurd lies about long-settled science to profit off of fear mongering are, as to be expected, out in full force. They’ve been upset ever since NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully looped its crew around the moon to get a close-up look at its surface before turning around and heading home.
Their latest conspiracy theory? Confusion over how the far side of the moon could have some light shining on it in the photos taken by the Artemis II crew. The implication here, of course, is that there’s something fishy going on. Luckily, there is an actual, rather simple explanation, as provided by IFLScience’s James Felton.
The sun lights up the moon. The so-called “dark side” isn’t permanently dark. It gets kissed by sunlight just like the side facing the Earth. Pretty simple, right?
The so-called “dark side” isn’t permanently dark; it receives sunlight just like the side facing Earth. The misunderstanding stems from a mix of bad terminology and worse assumptions. As the New York Times recently explained, scientists understand that this nickname causes a lot of unnecessary confusion. They would prefer we start referring to it as the “far” side of the moon, since that’s a much more accurate description that doesn’t implicitly implant false moon knowledge in everyone’s heads.
The Moon is tidally locked, meaning one hemisphere always faces Earth, but both sides cycle through day and night. During Artemis II’s planned trajectory, lighting conditions would naturally allow astronauts to see portions of the far side illuminated, including geological features never visible from Earth.
Unfortunately, none of that matters to the broader spectrum of conspiracy theorists. They have already made up their minds and would rather believe their own neat little narratives rather than accept the complexities and nuances of reality.
Though that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in this case, since the truth is no more complicated than the fantasy. The conspiracy theorists are using every minor technical glitch in the Artemis II livestreams to discredit the whole project, seemingly unable or unwilling to believe that a livestream from the moon might be glitchy. I guess these people haven’t seen someone trying to livestream from their living room in California.
For as long as humanity does incredible things, like send humans to the moon, there will always be people trying to discredit those achievements. Some are true believers; most are opportunistic scumbags trying to make easy money off of the vulnerable and gullible. It’s just a shame that they get algorithmically rewarded for it on social media.
The Artemis II mission represents the best of what humanity can do when we act altruistically in the hope of bettering our knowledge of our universe and our place within it. Thankfully, that pursuit is infinitely more rewarding to infinitely more people than the low-effort conspiracies peddled by a few disreputable con artists looking to make a quick buck.
