text: The one side of the moon is always facing the earth, so when the moon rotates around the earth one time, it also spins on it's axis one time. It's probably called geosynchronous or something like that.\n\nThe moon also deviates up and down on the horizon, so we do see it's north and south poles a little more or less each time. I remember reading that we've actually seen 59% of the moon facing us.\n\nThe other side is called the "dark side" of the moon. But in fact it 'sees' the sun as much as the side that faces us. I guess it just 'dark' to us.