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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 2483211" data-attributes="member: 5990">You can't really get around the problem that dark=cold. The heat has to come from somewhere. Tidal friction can warm the interior significantly, but I can't imagine what kind of system would have enough tidal friction to keep the atmosphere of a dark moon above the freezing point (with the surface solid), especially if tidal locking is complete. Best answer I can think of is that a very young moon would retain some of its accretion heat, but don't ask me how long that would last.I think what I'd do is lock the rotation and put the moon's orbit dead on in the ecliptic plane so that it goes through lunar eclipse on at least some part of the near side on every revolution.You could end up with a situation where 1/2 or more of the moon (the far side) enjoys a day-night cycle and one particular region in the center of the near side only gets short periods of indirect light. You would tend to get this with a moon in a relatively close orbit of a planet. For example, many of Jupiter's are eclipsed by the planet for long periods. It looks like Metis spends about 19% of its orbit eclipsed, so the center of the near side is only well illuminated for 31% of its orbit, during which the sunlight is rather indirect anyway.</blockquote>