Eric Hand is currently blogging at In The Field from the Division of Planetary Sciences fall meeting of the American Astronomical Society at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York – a “gorges” place. His posts from the meeting can be viewed here. (For orientation, the introductory post is here.)

Here’s Eric’s report of Sho Sakada’s talk: “the far side of the moon is full of gravitational lows. Scientists have long thought that the near side cooled more slowly, and that the moon’s warm mantle and core were tugged closer to the Earth. This dense rock is much closer to the surface on the near side, as evidenced by the mare basalt flows in all of the basins. The far side has a much thicker crust.”

Check out Eric’s reports for space music, tigers and sharks, and more, over at In the Field (the Nature news reporters’ blog from conferences and events).