When Moon reflects Light back to the Sun Is the radiation the same?

Answer 1

The moon reflects very little light back to the sun, as you suggest. Others above have commented about the reflectiveness of the Moon (it is called the Albedo actually), so I won't go into that. It is your understanding of how much light actually hits the moom and how much would reflect back to the sun that needs some explanation.

You have to imagine what the moon would look like from the sun. In fact from 150 million kms away, even the Earth only covers a 2 billionths of the sky as seen from the sun. The moon being about 13 times less surface area will receive about a 25 billionth of the suns light.

Then a faction of that light is reflected back into space. Some heads for earth, which is a realtively large target, but the sun from the moon, as big as the sun really is, is just a tiny target (same apparant size as we see it from Earth.

Therefore the amount of light the moon throws back to the sun is probably measured in quadarillionths of the light put out by the sun.

Even so, if you could stand on the sun and switch its power off for a while, you could actually see the Earth as a very bright starlike object (much like Venus looks to us) and nearby you would see the tinier but still very starlike moon.

Which all attests to the wonder of the human eye - able to bare bright sunlight, but able to see the tiniest speck of light at night.

Answer 2

Hi. No, the Moon's surface is covered with regolith and this is a poor reflector. The total of the reflected, scattered, and absorbed light IS equal to what the surface received.

Answer 3

the moon's surface doesn't reflect all types of radiation.

Answer 4

The reflected light will be missing the absorption spectra of the moon's surface, and different places have different absorption spectra.

Answer 5

Check your definition of 'reflects.'