The Moon is tide locked, and so has is a leading & trailing hemisphere in it's orbit. Which is it?

Question

If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, is it the left or right? And why aren't there more craters on the leading side than the trailing side?

Answer 1

crater question:

if you ride a motorcycle, you are apt to get bugs hit you in the face.

now, if you were driving in a big circle, you might also get hit by bugs, but less often.

now, how about you were driving in a big circle, on the deck of the USS Nimitz, while IT is driving in a big circle?

Answer 2

Well, the standard coordinate system of the moon has the 0° meridian pointing straight at Earth on the average.

The western hemisphere is pointing prograde (in the direction of travel), the eastern hemisphere points retrograde (against the direction of travel).

So, when you look at the moon from above, it will orbit the Earth counterclockwise.

Answer 3

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere looking south at the moon, the left side is the leading hemisphere.  The moon's speed in its orbit around the Earth is only 1 km/s, while meteor speeds are about 60 km/s.  So the leading side would have less than 2% more craters than the trailing side, on average.  Random deviations from the average could easily hide this.