Have you ever wondered why the moon looks yellow sometimes and white other times?

Well the moon is always the same colour but it appears different as we look at it through different amounts of atmosphere. Why? Well I’m glad you asked! Cue the thread!

When the moon is close to the horizon, it appears more yellow because we’re looking at it through more of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Let’s think about light for a second. White light is a combination of all the colours of the rainbow (still amazed by this but let’s roll with it)

We know the colours of the rainbow are a spectrum from red to violet and blue and yellow are somewhere in between. Particles in the Earth’s atmosphere like to scatter away blue light and leave behind colours that are more towards the red end of the spectrum like you know, yellow

So the more atmosphere, the more particles the moon’s light has to travel through before it reaches us and the more blue light is scattered away. Soooo it ends up looking yellow instead of white!

As the moon rises, we get to see it through less and less atmosphere until it reaches directly above us. That’s when we’re looking through the least atmosphere and when we can see the truest representation of the moon’s colour! (Image for reference below)

This scattering of blue light by the atmosphere is also responsible for the beautiful colours of a sunset!

PS I owed you guys a photoshoot with my moon lamp for #BlackInAstro week so I thought why not add some science to make up for the delay!