What makes the moon so bright?

Answer 1

The brightness of the sun, and the relatively proximity of the moon. The surface of the moon is actually a poor reflector, with an albedo of only 0.12, that is 12% of the light is reflected. The Earth's albedo is around 0.39, mostly because of the oceans and the clouds which are good light reflectors.

Answer 2

In looking up info on the moon's characteristics for a previous question, I was very surprised to read from wikipedia that the moon is actually about as bright as charcoal, reflecting only about 7% of the light that hits it - in other words, practically black. The reason it looks so bright tho is because everything else is so damn much darker. Once the eyes get night-adapted, damn near everything illuminated by the sun (which the moon is at night) looks bright. I imagine you could get a good idea of how this works if you were to:

Make a hole in the side of a box about the size of your face such that your face is a good fit to it.

Add a thick dark curtain over this hole so that, when your face is inserted, the curtain can be made to completely block any stray light still trying to get in.

Put a few lumps of charcoal in the far end of the box, and cut out perhaps a 1-inch diameter hole in the top of the box directly over the charcoal.

Set up the box outdoors such that the sun shines thru the top hole directly onto the charcoal. Put your face in the hole and block out all stray light with the curtain. Once your eyes dark-adapt a bit, the charcoal should look about the same brightness as the moon.

I ain't really going to do it, but feel free to try it, I'd imagine it's a pretty good match. - Cheers

Answer 3

Called Luna by the Romans, Selene and Artemis by the Greeks, and many other names in other mythologies.

The Moon, of course, has been known since prehistoric times. It is the second brightest object in the sky after the Sun. As the Moon orbits around the Earth once per month, the angle between the Earth, the Moon and the Sun changes; we see this as the cycle of the Moon's phases. The time between successive new moons is 29.5 days (709 hours), slightly different from the Moon's orbital period (measured against the stars) since the Earth moves a significant distance in its orbit around the Sun in that time.

Answer 4

The moon is like a big giant mirror in space that reflects the light from the sun. When the light waves reach earth, the moon appears dimmer. Thats the light.

Answer 5

the sunlight coming from the sun is reflected by the moon making the moon looks so bright

Answer 6

the suns aurora releases light prisms into the moons surface which reflects back

Answer 7

The sun.

Answer 8

light from the sun

Answer 9

reflected sunlight