The moon’s real color is a kind of off-white brown-gray due to its dusty surface when the sun shines on it. But when we look at the moon from Earth, it can appear to have different colors. This happens because of our planet’s atmosphere.
An Italian photographer named Marcella Giulia Pace has been studying these changes for ten years. She chose 48 of her pictures to show how the moon’s color can vary. The different colors we see when we look at the moon are because of Earth’s atmosphere.
This atmosphere is like layers of air, and they are not the same everywhere. When the moon’s light goes through these layers, the small air particles scatter the light. Blue light scatters more easily than red or orange because of how it’s built. This is why sometimes the moon looks reddish or orange, especially when it’s low on the horizon.
Also, things like water droplets, dust, or smoke from wildfires in the atmosphere can change how the moon looks. The colors we see depend on what’s in the atmosphere at that time.
Besides the color, the moon’s shape can also seem a bit different when we see it from Earth. This happens because the atmosphere is thicker near the ground and thinner higher up.
So, the moon’s light bends a little as it goes through these layers, making it look a bit flattened instead of a perfect circle when we see it from here.
