Abstract
THE recent photographs of the far side of the Moon taken by the Russian lunar rocket Lunik III raise interesting possibilities regarding the origin of lunar craters and the interplanetary material within our solar system the impact of which on the Moon's surface is presumed to cause the craters. If the reported lower incidence of craters on the Moon's far side is real and not a result of inadequate photographic resolution, it may be readily explained by the effect of the Earth's gravitation field on meteoric material orbiting about the Sun.
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References
Beard, D. B., Astrophys. J., 129, 496 (1959). See this article for other references to the literature.
Öpik, E. J., Irish Astro. J., 4, 84 (1956).
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BEARD, D. Absence of Craters on the Far Side of the Moon. Nature 184, 1631 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/1841631a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1841631a0
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