What we see from the earth is only one face of the moon. Our satellite appears bright with the spots representing the craters on the lunar surface. But there is a side of our satellite which is still not revealed to anyone, because of the lopsided shape. What caused the moon to be lopsided, scientists have finally figured out. A mystery of the space objects has been unveiled and the new data suggest that an early collison between the moon and another space object, a dwarf planet changed the shape of it, making the lunar surface unequal. The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Our Moon is Shrinking! NASA Study Reveals Lunar Surface is Experiencing Moonquakes.

The mystery about the shape of the moon has been going on for years. And there have been numerous theories about it. A new study by scientists from the Macau University of Science and Technology mentions about moon's collision with an ancient dwarf planet. The earlier pictures of our satellite taken years ago revealed that the moon has an extra layer of material on the crust, which has heavy craters near the side. The sides of the moon came into the picture after NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission in 2012 showed that the lunar near side has a thinner crust than the far side. Chinese Probe Reveals Secrets of Moon's Dark Side.

The very first theories about the moon's formation reveal that it came into existence after something struck the planet, a leftover material went out in space, which formed into a moon formation we see today. But analysing more of the information and running simulations of cosmic collisions, they concluded it caused the lunar asymmetry. The object would have been 780 kilometers in diameter.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 24, 2019 10:43 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).