What makes the moon surface relective?

Question

The surface of moon is similiar to that of earth. The earth surface is not reflective, how does moon surface reflect the sunlight to make it look shiny and radiant?

Answer 1

There are lots of little moon beings up there with mirrors.

The Earth is just as reflective as any other planet, including the moon. The moon's surface is a MUCH lighter color than Earth's. In addition, Earth is surrounded by many layers of atmosphere and clouds.

Haven't you ever seen a space shot of the Earth? Pretty bright to me!

Answer 2

The Moon shines by the reflection of sunlight, and the various gray shades across the lunar disk reveal variations in reflectivity. The darker and flatter regions correspond to large craters and lunar mare (Latin for seas), areas where less sunlight is reflected. The brighter regions are more rugged, and correspond to lunar highlands and mountains, areas with lower solar reflectivity.

I'm pretty sure the author means "higher reflectivity" in that last sentence.

Nonetheless, different planets and moons have different reflectivities. The moon is very apparent to us due to its relative proximity to the Sun (as opposed to, say, Jupiter) and its proximity to us.

The intensity of any light source decreases as a square of the distance to the observer. Martians would take little note of the moon, but Earth would be very apparent in their night sky.

Answer 3

I don't think it is any mor reflective that other planets, including the earth. The color of the material is a light grey or brown, so it reflects light more that the blue ocean...but then again, we are not used to looking at the earth from space.