We are familiar with the full moon, but this one is special. The picture shows the fully illuminated far side of the moon, which we Earthlings never see. Thanks to the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which captured this view of an apparently Full Moon crossing in front of a Full Earth on July 16,2015.

DSCOVR is a NOAA Earth observation and space weather satellite which was launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle on Feb 9,2011. The first ever image of the far side of the Moon was taken by lunar exploration(Soviet probe Luna 3) on October 7, 1959. The spacecraft was positioned between Earth and the Sun and beyond the Moon’s orbit, which made it possible to capture this marvellous shot.

The reason why we can’t see the far side is that its orbital period is exactly the same as its rotational period. If it never spins at all, we would have been able to see its far side. This behaviour is called Tidal Locking.

But still, we are able to see 59% of the moon’s surface, thanks to Liberation,which is the back-and-forth motion of the moon because of which an observer can see different halves of the moon’s surface at different times. Watch this phenomenon here.

Watch this video and understand Tidal Locking in a better way.