Man in the Moon Man in the Moon The Man in the Moon refers to any of several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body that certain traditions recognize in the disc of the full moon. The images are composed of the dark areas of the lunar "maria", or "seas" and the lighter highlands of the lunar surface. There are various explanations for how the Man in the Moon came to be. A longstanding European tradition holds that the man was banished to the Moon for some crime. Christian lore commonly held that he is the man caught gathering sticks on the
Far side of the Moon total, 59 percent of the Moon's surface is visible from Earth at one time or another. Useful observation of the parts of the far side of the Moon occasionally visible from Earth is difficult because of the low viewing angle from Earth (they cannot be observed "full on"). The phrase "dark side of the Moon" does not refer to "dark" as in the absence of light, but rather "dark" as in unknown: until humans were able to send spacecraft around the Moon, this area had never been seen. While many misconstrue this to think that the "dark side" receives little