The Dark Side of the Moon

Found this on 'Strange Maps' - it's an interpretation (look like craters maybe?) of the dark side of the moon made by NASA & the US Geological Society. This map would not have looked out of place on a Beatles and (for obvious reasons) Pink Floyd album cover, but of course it was too recent.

Just shows how imaginative you can be when mapmaking!

Ravs

You haven't been listening to enough Pink Floyd.

"There is no Dark Side Of The Moon, really. (As a matter of fact it's all dark.)"

I think that map underlinesw the name of the site within wich you found it. That is one strange map!

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Originally Posted by töff

You haven't been listening to enough Pink Floyd.

"There is no Dark Side Of The Moon, really. (As a matter of fact it's all dark.)"

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Or you've been listening to too much Pink Floyd. :)
There is no dark or light side to the moon. Any given spot (with the exception of some polar areas) receives about 14 days of sunlight in turn. There is a far side, however.

Ravells.
It is an interesting image, but I would hardly call it a map. It seems to me that it violates one or more of the Five Principles that were listed in your other post. It seems to me, as well, to be too abstract to be considered a "map" in any sense of the word that we think of one.

Which principle(s) do think it offends?

I suppose a legend or key and a scale would be nice so we knew what the colours meant and the size of the area covered. Once we had that information, then the map would make sense to us?

I just found the use of colours very pretty and the fact that it stood up well as a design despite (or perhaps because) the shapes were naturally formed.

Also it's different, and it's nice to see the language of maps being pushed further out.

Ravs

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Originally Posted by The Cartographist

Ravells.
It is an interesting image, but I would hardly call it a map. It seems to me that it violates one or more of the Five Principles that were listed in your other post. It seems to me, as well, to be too abstract to be considered a "map" in any sense of the word that we think of one.

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Well - I don't think it is any "worse" than many of the false colour maps out there. As Rav's pointed out, the lack of a legend/key makes it less useful in conveying information than it could be.

The original Wired post is here:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2...st-beauti.html

and it indicates that was made with:

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colors correlating to geological materials and phenomena

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-Rob A>

Having thought about it for some time now, I guess what I meant was that it doesn't convey any information. It is an abstract image that, while pretty/interesting to look at, provides no utility.

Absolutely. If it was presented to you in the form shown (without a key, legend etc) - one would not think it was a map.

Well, it does depict, pretty accurately, the spatial position of certain features on the moon. What those features are would be mysterious without the key, but even without the key there is some information content.

I have the original map in a book on terrestrial planets. It's a geological map, and quite informative if you have the key(and understand it :) ). Basically, as I remember, the different colors represent different ages and origins of surface materials. For instance mare deposits, younger craters and their associated ejecta fields, older craters, etc.