Why does the moon illuminate in the sky?
473429
Because the moon reflects light from the sun.
401971
when the light from the stars enter the earth's atmosphere, the light wave bends and refracted until it reach our eyes. So because it is refracted, when we look at it, it seems to be twinkling.
580957
When the light from the sun hits the earth some of the light (The higher frequency or blue light) gets trapped or rather scattered by the smaller molecules in the atmosphere.  This scattering makes the sky blue because these particles reflect this blue light.\nAt night the light we are seeing is  the light of  the sun reflected off of the moon and it is much less intense.
185914
That has happened for the past week, right? Well, when the moon is behind the earth relatively to the sun, it's seen as full; but along the next 2 weeks the moon is going to make her way in the direction of the sun, so when it's halfway it's seen half-illuminated (in the half looking to the sun), in broad daylight... that's the phase "last quarter moon". Slowly day by day you'll notice the moon gets thinners and thinner, and closer to the sun... until one day you don't see it - that's because she's very near the sun from where we stand - and we see her "behind" which is not illuminated.
629239
because the earths atmosphere acts like a lens, so the lower the sun or moon to the horizon then the larger they appear :)
124988
The moon appears yellow when it is low in the sky (or even orange or red) for the same reason that the sun appears yellow when it is low in the sky (or even orange or red). \n\nNitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air are the right size to scatter away blue light from the mostly white light emitted from the sun (and reflected from the moon). This is called Rayleigh-Tyndall scattering, and there are many answers here dealing with that question. \n\nThis is the reason that the sky looks blue during the day, but during the night, with only the moon for lumination, there is not enough light to brighten the sky sufficiently for us to think it is blue. \n\nWhen the sun and the moon are low in the horizon, the light from these bodies travels through more atmosphere, so more blue light is scattered away, leaving orange or even red light:\n\n1. When the moon or sun is high in the sky:\n\n(whitish light from sun or moon)-(blue light scattered away)= (yellow light)\n\n2. When the moon or sun is low in the sky:\n\n(whitish light from sun or moon)-(more blue light scattered away because sun or moon is lower in sky)= (orange or red light)\n\nIt should be noted that the moon can not only appear whitish, yellow, red or orange, but because of refraction effects, can appear to have a green rim or a red rim (see reference), related to the green flash.\n\nAlso, if there are smoke or dust particles in the air, then instead of Rayleigh scattering, one encounters the phenomenon called nonselective scattering, where the red is scattered away, and the sun or moon appears blue. \n\nRayleigh scattering (blue gets scattered) occurs when the size of the scattering particle is smaller than the wavelength of the light. \n\nNonselective scattering (red gets scattered) occurs when the size of the scattering particle is about the same as the wavelength of the light. \n\nMie scattering (all colors scattered; causes the white of clouds and smoke) occurs when the size of the scattering particle is much larger than the wavelength of light.
98413
the moon generally appears larger when it is near the horizon. It works by the fact that you have something to compare it too. The same moon that night way up high in the sky obviously would look smaller as there is nothing to compare it too.\n\nThere is one fool proof way to prove this. When the moon is near the horizon stick out your arm and cover the moon with the tip of your pinkie. Do it again when the moon is overhead, you'll soon see it is the same size.
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.
448771
I think it would because while the sun and the moon both shine, the moon is not boastful and sometimes hides away only showing it's light some of the time and, even then, only softly. Doesn't that seem beautiful to you?
14526
The bright ring is called a 'halo'\n\nIt's a fairly common sight and occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo.\n\nSee a nice picture of one here:\nhttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000515.html
1100118
They navigate at night by the light of the moon. So now there is man made light interfering so they are drawn to that light. Therefore they keep circling the light thinking the have reached the moon.\n\nI actually think its quite sad to think how we have disrupted nature that way but now you know at lease.
878490
Because the Moon is round and the Sun is the only source of light in our solar system - only half of it can be illuminated at one time.  But sometimes the side we don't see it lit up - when we have a new Moon.
380337
The sun reflects from the surface of the moon just as it does from the surface of the earth, as viewed from outer space.  Everything we can see is due to the sun reflecting the light from it, such as mountains or desert in the distance.
746634
Day or night, you are seeing the portion of the moon that is facing the sun. The only time Earth blocks illumination of the moon is during a lunar eclipse, which happens only two or three times a year.
8454
Light from the moon passing through Ice crystals in Earth's upper atmosphere.\n\nI have included links to a couple of web pages that include photos and explanations.
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.
262627
It is.  It's just very dark blue so it looks black.  I'm sure you'll agree that even a "very bright" moon is a lot darker than the sun.  I took a picture at night for fifteen seconds at 1600 ISO on a hazy night and the sky came out blue.  I think the bright points (stars) add contrast to the sky that make it look dark so the haze evened the sky out.