What causes the moon to reflect the sun's light?
107107
Just guessing...because it's not absorbing it.
968800
It is the shadow of the Earth or rather, the part you see is the part that is not in the shadow of the Earth.\n\nThe shape the moon appears depends on its position relative to the Earth and the Sun. Depending on the timing, the shadow the Earth casts on the moon will change.\n\nSince the orbits of the moon and earth are constant, astronomers thousands of years ago have been able to predict the shape of the moon depending on the date.
1092052
The blood red moon effect is caused when the earth is directly in between the sun and the moon (sort of like an eclipse) and the light bouncing off the moon is light in the red shift zone.
564158
All natural light sources generate a "spectrum" of frequencies that approaches the "black body" radiation curve. The peak of that curve denotes the temperature of the emitting object. Certain frequencies can be affected in transit via interaction with materials as in emission and reflection nebula (ie. various places within the Orion constellation). The sun emits UV radiation commensurate with its black body ideal.\n\nUNLESS someone can show that the moon absorbes ALL UV frequencies on reflection then by definition:\n\nMOONLIGHT DOES INDEED CONTAIN UV FREQUENCIES\n\n===============================================\nSome of you people amaze me, you answer questions that you know NOTHING about. Answers like "No because it is reflected light" are a case in point. Is your blue shirt invisible in the mirror because the light coming from your shirt is lost as it reflects off of the mirror. I THINK NOT! Reflected light IS LIGHT. Some of it is absorbed, reflected, refracted but it is light. YES; the UV portion in moonlight is very weak, hey guess what -ALL THE LIGHT frequencies in moonlight are weak; THATS WHY MOONLIGHT IS DIM.\n==============================\nUV is NOT produced only from objects above 24000 degrees. It is produced at ALL temperatures, but the lower the temperature the lower the amount of UV that is produced. PLEASE Google "black body radiation"
12626
The answer might seem to be yes, or at least maybe. After all, moonlight is reflected sunlight. And if direct sunlight can cause you to tan and even burn, then why not reflected sunlight? Sure, moonlight clearly isn't as strong as light coming directly from the sun. But perhaps enough exposure to a radiant moon could cause a very light tan.\n\nBut the actual answer, as you may have guessed, is no. You can't get a tan from the moon, no matter how bright. You see, we tan when our skin produces melanin in reaction to the sun's ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet rays are harmful; they can cause skin damage and even cancer. Our skin produces melanin as a defense against ultraviolet rays. Melanin absorbs ultraviolet radiation, thereby protecting the skin's cells. So the more ultraviolet light, the more melanin our skin will produce.\n\nThe catch is that it takes a certain amount of ultraviolet sunlight to make the skin produce melanin. Sunlight reaching us via the moon just doesn't have enough ultraviolet oomph to trigger the skin's defensive shield. A full moon may look really bright, but the surface of the moon is actually pretty dark. The moon absorbs most of the sunlight that hits it.\n\nOf course, some of the sun's reflected ultraviolet light does reach us. Theoretically, prolonged exposure to moonlight could cause some damage. But in this case "prolonged" means hundreds of years of continuous moon bathing. But under normal conditions our skin quickly repairs whatever minimal damage is caused by the light of the silvery moon.
940937
the light side of the moon move in front of the sun causing it to form the image you see that is know as the solar eclipse\n(since the dark side of the moon is facing you then it's clearly dark, and the sun's behind it so light shines around it)
974494
Actually the Moon is a rather poor reflector, with only 7% of light hitting it being reflected.  That is defined as an albedo of 7.  Earth by contrast has an albedo of 35, the increase being due to ice caps and clouds being extremely good reflectors.  Since the Earth is about 4 times the size of the Moon, its surface area is about 16 times as great.  With an albedo 5X greater than the Moon's and a surface 16X the Moon's, at comparable distances Earth is 90 times brighter than the Moon.  One deep space probe actually looked back and photographed the two together, and the Moon is barely visible in the original photo.
113023
It is just an optical illusion. Your brain apparently compares the moon (and the sun) with familiar objects around it and that makes it appear larger. If you took pictures and measured, you would see that there is no difference (we had to do this in school in grade 8, and there definitely is no size difference). \n\nThere are refraction effects when the moon and the sun is low in the horizon that distort their shape so they do not look spherical, or are no longer simply connected, or exhibit green flashes etc. But the size does not vary appreciably if they are high enough in the sky to be seen as circular disks.
1144844
To begin with, we should know that the earth revolves around the sun and the moon revoloves around the earth. When the moon comes in between the earth and the sun and the three are in a straight line, some portion of the earth, which is facing the moon experiences the solar eclipse.\nHowever, when the earth comes in between sun and the moon, then lunar eclipse takes place.( Moon does not have any light of its own, we see it shining because of the sun light. Hence when the sunlight is blocked there is no light for moon to shine and there is lunar eclipse)
1134743
Um... I'm assuming you're referring to the sun (Ra being the Egyptian sun god)  The light isn't invisible; it's the reason you can see the moon at all.  The moon itself doesn't actually emit light, so the reason you can see it is because light from the sun is bouncing off it and hitting your eye.
330323
what? I don't think the moon appears stationary since it travels across the sky and goes through phases.\nWhat?
481798
A Corona.\n\nThe moon can produce interesting optical effects when conditions are right. The most common of which are moon rings, moon bows, which are similar to rainbows, moon dogs and moon pillars. A rainbow is produced when sunlight is refracted through water droplets - A similar effect is produced when moon light refracts through ice crystals\n\nThe ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape, namely a hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is almost always the same size.
189545
The moon's gravitational pull causes the waves to form.\n\nAnd those waves are what cause wind to be generated.
74901
Perhaps they just looked like clouds?  Have a read...\n\n"The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape, namely a hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is almost always the same size."\n\n//
499567
no it's not cos of the earth's shadow on the moon. its cos of the position of the sun and the angle at which the sun's rays hit the moon. the moon moves around the earth. if it moves further from the sun, less light will be reflected and you see a half-moon or quarter-moon.\n\nas u know, the light hte moon 'projects' is actually the reflection of light. the moon isnt a source of light. \n\nwhen the sun is directly behind the moon, and it shines on the 'back' of the moon, this causes an eclipse cos ppl on earth can only see a dark circle (the moon - as it does not reflect light in this case) and a whitish circle around the moon (the sun's rays)\n\nhope this helps!! :D
1093886
The moon's light is actually just a reflection.  The surface of the moon reflects the suns light.  That is why you can have half moons, quarter moons, etc.  The moon itself doesn't produce any light.
264918
You see the reflected sunlight- Each planet has a different reflectivity index, termed the albido.  Venus, for example, is covered in light-colored clouds, so it has a high albedo, and reflects a lot of light, making it a very bright planet.  Just for interst, the moon has an extremely low albedo, around the same as black powder- If the moon had an albedo as high as venus, or even better where covered in white powder like snow, moonlight would be bright enough read fine print by and we wouldnt need streetlights on clear nights with a full moon.