If you are one of those cosmic lovers who looks up every day to observe their stars, you may have noticed that the Moon does not always have the same color. It transitions between different shades, from the brightest to the most opaque or extravagant. But unlike what one might believe, the different shades that cover its beautiful craters and surface do not depend entirely on it. At least from the position in which we see it from Earth. An astrophotographer captured Earth’s natural satellite for ten years and it has the most colored moons than any other photographer in the world.
What color is the Moon?
The surface of the Moon is grayish in color, we know this thanks to the explorations of the Apollo Mission that NASA carried out from 1961 to 1972. However, like all the surrounding orbs that we know so far, its surface is not homogeneous. . It is full of craters, valleys, seas and lunar oceans that give it a darker color than the rest of the surface. Up to this point we could conclude that the Moon is gray. But, from Earth we can observe it in different colors and this is where the interesting part comes in.
The first thing we must understand is that the Moon does not shine on its own, but rather reflects sunlight that we then see as lunar illumination. In that sense, the color of the moon depends on various factors such as atmospheric conditions and its interaction with sunlight. That is, we cannot properly say that the Moon has a specific color when seen from Earth. Although we know that its surface is grayish, from our position we can observe moons that range from reddish to purple and bluish tones.
A show about to begin
Clouds and particles suspended in the air directly affect the refraction of light. The suspended particles themselves refract part of the sunlight that we see coming from the Moon. It’s like thinking about a big concert where they almost always use smoke chambers so that the particles make the colors reflected by the light cannons travel. Without these smoke particles, the light will appear in different shades and variations. This is what happens with the , which prepares us for a cosmic show about to begin.
Currently there are some official systems for recognizing the colors of the Moon. Called the Danjon scale, this measures the luminosity and appearance of the Moon.
The Danjon value scale is measured as follows:
A ten year journey through colors
However, there is a problem with limiting oneself to the Danjon scale and that is that it is designed mainly for observing eclipses, where the Moon almost always acquires colors from grayish to reddish. Leave aside all those different colorations such as blue or violet.
*Credits: Marcella Giulia
To do this, recently NASA, in collaboration with the Italian astronomer Marcella Guilla, presented an amazing poster. In it you can see all the colorations of the Moon that were recorded through photographs for ten years. The result is extremely amazing since there are not only bright and conventionally colored moons, but there are also lilac, blue and pink tones.
The Moon can have a specific color, depending on those who visited it and the most powerful space telescopes. But from our planet the Moon can have the color that the conditions decide, which will almost always be different.