What makes the moon look "orange" sometimes?

Question

i noticed the other night that the moon had an orange almost red tint to it and i was curious what caused it. it was a full moon.

Answer 1

The moon can have an orange color at any time of the year. Sometimes the moon appears orange even when it's directly overhead. This occurs when there's a lot of dust, smoke, or pollution in the atmosphere. The size of those particles will determine the type of color you will see.

Answer 2

This is mainly due to a prismatic effect on the light being reflected by the moon. When the moon is close to the horizon and hits the correct angle to the sun, the curvature and content of the Earth's atmosphere causes light waves near the red end of the spectrum reach us more easily. It's similar to why the Sun looks red early in its rise.

Answer 3

Just like the Sun, light from the Moon passes through the Earth's atmosphere before reaching your eye. Blue light is scattered more easily by the atmosphere than red light, so the remaining unscattered light is preferentially red. This occurs most obviously when the moon is near the horizon, because you are seeing the Moon through more atmosphere.

Answer 4

I remember this from school allllooooong time ago so I don't know if I'm remembering it all correctly just that it was very interesting. It has something to do with the way the sun reflects off the surface of the moon and I think also something about the position of the moon at the time the sun is reflecting off it.

Answer 5

I'm guessing the moon was low to the horizon when you saw it with the orangeish tint. That tint is caused by light from the moon passing through more of Earth's dusty, smoggy atmosphere than when it's higher in the sky.

Answer 6

Pollution

Answer 7

smog