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Originally Posted by Nicolas
The gravity field is the same as for a round standard moon.
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Not exactly the same, of course, but only approximately the same very far away from the moon.
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Originally Posted by Nicolas
Good analogy with the hammer battering one side. Let him hold a ball in front of his face and then let others throw stones at him, and ask afterwards which side of his head hurts most
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As you allude to in your later post, the Earth would not provide much "protection". It would be as if someone were throwing stones at his face, and you were protecting him by holding a beach ball
fifty meters away.
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IIRC the main reason for the differences though, is that the crust is thicker on the far side, and that prevents the smooth areas to be formed by the hot interior material (does the moon still have a hot interior these days?) I thought that was only a hypothesis, but a very plausible one.
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I think that is only a hypothesis, and one far from certain, IIFC. That may have been what they meant by "no one really knows"