How the moon reflects the sun

The Moon is extremely light colored, a very light gray, like concrete is here on Earth. Because it is so light colored, and it has little or no atmosphere to absorb sunlight, and no foliage or water to absorb sunlight, it reflects a tremendous amount of the light that strikes it. It is also quite large, over 2,000 miles in diameter, so it makes a really good natural mirror to reflect all that sunlight. Interestingly, Earth reflects sunlight the same way, which is why when you look at the Moon as a thin crescent, you can see the shadowed side of the moon bathed in faint bluish light, called %26quot;earthshine%26quot;.




The amount of light reflected by an astronomical body is called its %26quot;albedo.%26quot;





As astronomical bodies go, the moon actually has a pretty low albedo, only around 0.07 (meaining it reflects only 7% of the light that shines on it). Many objects have much higher albedos, but it is the moon%26#039;s close proximity that makes all the difference.





There are bodies in the universe that have EXTREMELY high albedos. Saturn%26#039;s moon Enceladus has nearly a 99% albedo. Eris, one of the larger Kuiper Belt Objects (and classified with Pluto as a dwarf planet) also seems to have a very high albedo. The planet Venus has an Albedo of 65%. Even the Earth is much more reflective than the moon, with an albedo of about 30%. (This, combined with the earth%26#039;s larger size, makes the Earth as seen by Apollo astronauts orbiting the moon about 60 times?over 4 magnitudes?brighter than the moon seen from here.)




every object in the universe (except black holes) reflect light, the percentage of light reflected does vary however on the surface of a object and what it is made of




Think of the Sun as a flashlight and Moon as a mirror and yourself as the Earth. If you shine a flashlight on a mirror, the light reflects back to you which is what is happens.




Actually, the moon is very dark. IT%26#039;s black like coal if you%26#039;re up there. It reflects about 12% of the light that is incident upon it. But 12% of a whole lot of sunlight makes for quite a bright surface.


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