A false-color photograph of the Moon, compiled from 15 images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its flyby on December 8, 1992. But what color is moonlight really? (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
Blue moons, blood moons, and honey moons have all found their way into fiction and folklore, but the changing hue of our largest satellite remains a subject of scientific study. The moon doesn’t emit its own light, but reflects the sun’s white light. So what color is moonlight, and why does it sometimes appear differently, at least from Earth’s perspective?
The answer lies in how much of that reflected light reaches us on Earth. Studies on the moon show it is mostly made of a light-gray rock known as anorthosite, with some darker patches of basalt, said Christine Shupla, science communications manager at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
“Gray rock is an equal absorber of energy,” she told Live Science. It absorbs a small fraction of each element of the spectrum, but overall it reflects white light back to Earth, giving the moon its characteristic grayish-white color.
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Sourse: www.livescience.com
