pieratt:
Why is the moon so bright?
The moon is actually quite dim, compared to other astronomical bodies. The moon only seems bright in the night sky because it is so close to the earth and because the trees, houses, and fields around you are so dark at night. In fact, the moon is one of the least reflective objects in the solar system. The DSCOVER spacecraft captured this single photograph of the moon and the earth. Both the earth and the moon are illuminated by the same amount of sunlight coming from the same angle in this photo. As you can see in this photo, the earth is much brighter than the moon.
https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/08/06/why-is-the-moon-so-bright/
It reflects about 13% I believe, roughly the color of asphalt. The thumbnail image is a common post on Reddit, it’s always a chore going through the comments.
No, it’s not photoshopped.
Yes, it really is that dark.
The rainbow is because the picture is taken in 3 colors separately.
The satellite is at L1 between the Earth and Sun.
The bodies look that size because the camera is veeeeeeery far away with a telescopic lens. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/138aba8/til_that_the_moon_is_one_of_the_dullest_objects/
