slatestarscratchpad:

mariusgaaazzh:

(as told by my astronomy prof, and I don’t bother to fact check because it’s too fucking great). My people are assholes and I am so proud.

so. the Moon has seas, those splashes of the darker basalt rock. and as we had no problems seeing them, they all have nice sounding Latin names, Sea of Tranquility, Ocean of Cries, etc.

the far side of the Moon, however, we haven’t seen much of. and the general consensus of the International Astronomical Union was that if someone were to fly over, take pictures and discover another sea, it has to be named after a state of mind, following the pattern.

and so it happened, that in 1959 a Soviet probe was the first one to fly over, take pictures and discover exactly one sea on the far side. and what »