how does the moon get lit up?

Answer 1

Your question is a good one and it gets asked a lot at observatory open houses when people are squinting through the eyepiece at the almost painfully bright lunar surface! The answer is that the Moon is actually not very reflective,the Sun is just very bright. The Moon reflects only about 11% of the sunlight that hits it. But the Sun is so bright that even this much reflection looks very bright to us. The rocks on the lunar surface are greyish volcanic rocks, and although there are small glass particles mixed in (which can be shiny), the overall mixture isn't really very reflective.

Answer 2

The moon gets liten up by light from the sun. For example, if you are in New York at 10 PM, the sun is shining brightly on Hawaii at that time. If the moon happens to be visible to you in New York, the sun's light will reflect off of the moon to you. Since the sun's light shines in all directions, it "bounces" off of the moon, sometimes making the moon a night light when it is dark.

Answer 3

The Sun's light reflects off of the moon and causes it to light up.

Answer 4

The moon appears to light up due to the reflection of sunlight off of it.

Answer 5

It's the light reflecting from the sun. It's like the sky being blue from light reflecting from the ocean.

Answer 6

Reflected light from the sun.

Answer 7

Sunlight.

Answer 8

By the sun or martians holding candles.

Answer 9

From the sunlight

Answer 10

sun reflection