what in the atmosphere gives the moon its colors?

Question

about the moon

Answer 1

Nothing. That's the color of the moon.

Answer 2

Color vision is not very well understood. It is known that the eye and brain try to adjust the colors you see to correct for the color of the light shining on it. That is why grass looks green even when you see it under the red light of sunset. When you look at the Moon during the day, your eye sees the blue background of the sky, and your brain thinks that the light is blue, and (incorrectly) figures out what color the Moon must actually be to look the way it does under blue light. When you look at it at night, the brain has more trouble since it has no way of guessing what color the light is. This might account for the apparent color difference.

Another possibility, which is certainly part of it, is that the color difference is due to skylight. When you look at the Moon during the day, you see the moonlight, plus all the blue sunlight which is scattered by the atmosphere between the Moon and you. At night, the atmosphere doesn't have any sunlight to scatter.

Answer 3

(Cut and pasted from link provided - I realize this article speaks about sunsets, but it could also be attributed to the various colours seen for the moon):

Typical pollution droplets such as those found in urban smog or summertime haze are on the order of .5 to 1 um in diameter. Particles this large are not good Rayleigh scatterers since they are comparable in size to the wavelength of visible light. If the particles are uniform in size, they might impart a reddish or bluish cast to the sky. But since such aerosols normally exist in a wide range of sizes, the overall scattering produced is not strongly wavelength- dependent. As a result, hazy daytime skies, instead of being bright blue, appear grayish or even white. Similarly, the vibrant oranges and reds of "clean" sunsets give way to pale yellows and pinks when dust and haze fill the air.

Airborne pollutants, however, do more than soften sky colors. They also enhance the attenuation of both direct and scattered light, especially when the sun is low in the sky. This reduces the amount of light which reaches the ground, robbing sunrises and sunsets of brilliance and intensity. Thus, twilight colors at the surface on dusty or hazy days tend to be muted and subdued, even though purer oranges and reds persist in the cleaner air aloft.

Answer 4

Assuming u are talking about the yellowish-ness or occasional pink/red hue- It's the Atmospheric dust.
Moonlight, as it travels through Earth's atmosphere, is reflected, refracted umpteen times. Higher the dust levels, more the diffraction and yellowish/reddish appearance.

Occasionally,though rarely, 'lunar storms' also affect the colour of moon as seen from earth.

Answer 5

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060911195441AAIxdnU
I believe this question has been asked, and answered, before. Enjoy!