Why does the moon change from a pale white to almost invisible during a lunar eclipse?

Answer 1

Because in a solar eclipse light is bouncing off of earth back at the moon, then back at us again, and in a lunar eclipse light passes through our atmosphere, curves slightly around the earth and hits the moon, then bounces back, seemingly changing it's color.

Answer 2

The light you see on the Moon, when it is in its totality phase, is light refracted from the Earth's atmosphere. Since refraction acts different on different wavelengths (or frequencies), red light gets diffracted more, so the Moon looks redder than usual.

Answer 3

When Earth passes between the sun and the moon, you'd figure that the moon would disappear, right? Wrong. Even seasoned lunar eclipse watchers might be surprised to learn how bright the moon is supposed to be.

The reason for redness

So why can you still see the moon during a total eclipse? It's because some sunlight is still hitting it, and for that you can thank our atmosphere. Particles in the atmosphere cause the light rays coming from the sun to bounce around. Some are refracted, or bent. They get redirected through the atmosphere and out around behind Earth and onto the moon, which is blocked only from direct sunlight.

Thus, the moon is still visible in the sky. However, the refracted rays of sunlight doing the illuminating turn the moon a strange reddish. Or copper. Maybe rust.

That's because of all the bouncing around those rays had to go through on their way through the atmosphere. The more atmosphere that sunlight travels through, the more the blue and green parts of the spectrum are scattered. That's why sunrises and sunsets are yellow and pink and red. The low early or late sun, hitting the atmosphere at a shallow angle, has to fight through more atmospheric particles on its way to your eye, and the reddish wavelengths get through better.

The same thing happens to sunlight refracted onto the moon during an eclipse. The sunlight hits the atmosphere on the sides of Earth at a shallow angle and is carried through a lot of atmosphere until it's redirected out onto the moon "hiding" from direct sunlight. The red end of the spectrum is all that can get through that much interference. So the moon in total eclipse appears as an eerie, glowing copper ball in the sky.

How does it rate?

It may sound odd, but lunar eclipses are actually rated by their brightness. On the Danjon scale (Andre Danjon, French astronomer) a moon you can barely see is a zero. A bright copper-red or orange moon during total eclipse rates a 4.

Total lunar eclipses tend to be brighter when the atmosphere is relatively clear of volcanic dust. A dirty atmosphere blocks more sunlight and dims the eclipse. So does the weather, and it's not just whether the weather is cloudy overhead. The weather around the globe counts, too. The cloudier the global atmosphere, the less sunlight makes it around to the moon, and the dimmer a show we get.

Unlike a quickie solar eclipse, which flashes past in a maximum of 7 1/2 minutes, the lunar variety happens at a more leisurely pace. The shadow made by Earth as it blocks the sun is 6,480 miles wide, out where the moon crosses through it.

The moon itself is only 2,160 miles wide, and it's traveling about 2,300 mph. So it's roughly three hours from the time the moon first touches the shadow, known as the umbra, until the last part of the moon passes out of it. The middle third of the journey is the part of the eclipse that's "total."

Don't give yourself a neck cramp trying to spot the precise moment of the event's start or finish: Sunlight hitting the rest of the moon will keep the leading edge of shadow from showing up distinctly.

For the best view of a lunar eclipse, try binoculars. They bring you in closer, but preserve a wide enough field of view to see the whole show. And don't worry about looking at it directly with the naked eye. That's only a problem with the radiation streaming from a partial solar eclipse.

Answer 4

The moon is visible at night because the sun reflects off it. And t5he only reason why we get half moons, new moons etc is because the earth orbits and the sun is then blocked. That is how we get total eclipse's because the sin the moon and the earth are in line so no moon can be seen.

Answer 5

The moon travels in a complete orbital revolution around the earth every 27.32 days,

so it makes sense that there should be occasions when it's in the sky at the same time

that the sun is.

On the average during a month, the moon is in the sky (up) for almost 13 hours

out of every 24.

With the possible exception of the time of the Full Moon, the moon is up during

some of the daylight hours of every day.

Answer 6

If you think about it, it's pretty simple: If you take three balls, one as the Earth, one the Sun and the third is the Moon. The Moon follows the Earth, which rotates with the Sun. At some point, the Moon will be in front of the Sun. Of course the Earth will also be in front of the Sun, but the only one who can see it, is the aliens on the Moon.

Answer 7

The moon's surface only change with impacts of asteroids and comets which explains the cratered appearance of our moon. Naturally, we also change the surface when we send space ships to the moon and leave part of them.

However, the moon does not have an active atmosphere or water like on earth, which changes the appearance on earth due to erosion. Since the moon does not have a hot core, there is also no plate tectonics which recycles the surface crust like on earth.

Footprints left by Niel Amstrong in 1969 will remain on the moon for millions or billions of years unchanged, unless they are hit by an asteroid for example, which would naturally erase them again.

So in short, except for impact craters, the moons surface does not change in the same manner as we see the earth surface change.

Answer 8

when the light from the sun hits the earth then the earht breaks the urface causing laser beams to be sent from above, when this happens, the heavens call ur name and then eat the grasss of the noble atmosphere thus causing the fibers on the moon to break apart and flaash in many different ways when this happens, the colors began to diifere grealy and that is why the moon is different colors

Answer 9

If you notice, the moon is dazzlingly bright just before a lunar eclipse begins, and right after it completely finishes. This is because the reflection of light from the sun at that time is as direct as it can get. If you are observing on a very clear night, the full moon is almost as beautiful as the total eclipse.

As a lunar eclipse progresses, there are two kinds of shadow that move across the moon's face. They are the penumbra and the umbra. Look at the television screen or computer monitor. Take a piece of paper and move it in front of your face slowly. You notice that you can block a small part of the screen, or all of it. You can block any amount in between.

It's the same with the lunar eclipse. The leading edge of the earth (limb in astronomy terms) just begins to block sunlight on the moon's surface. There is less and less light striking the moon, but some sunlight remains. So the surface of the moon appears to get less and less bright. This partial light means the earth is producing what is called the 'penumbra', meaning roughly "the umbra, or shadow, that is next to the last umbra". Look up the words penumbra, and penultimate. This penumbra is just like the partial blocking of the screen that you did a moment ago.

After a while, the earth begins to block (from the point of view of an observer on the moon) all of the sunlight hitting the moon. This shadow is called the umbra, and if you are within the umbra on the moon, you would look up to see that the sun is completely blocked by the earth. Now this umbra (if the eclipse is going to be total) moves across the face of the moon and engulfs the entire surface of the moon. If you are fortunate, you will see the reddish color that lunar eclipses often show, as sunlight moves through the curved space caused by earth's gravitation. It is the red light that moves through the curved space and faintly illuminates the darkened moon.

Answer 10

During a lunar eclipse the moon is on the opposite side of the Earth to that of the sun. As such light from the Sun is passing through the Earths atmosphere and being scattered onto the Moon. As the Earths atmosphere scatters blue light more than it does red (why the sky is blue) mostly only red light falls onto the moon giving it its brown-red colour.