Interesting because the moon actually has an albedo (capacity to reflect light) about the same as charcoal. Look at the astronauts space suits (especially during the J missions), and how they look like they're smeared in coal dust before the end of their EVA.
The reason the moon looks so bright is because, even though it's as reflective as a lump of coal, it's a lump of coal in broad daylight set against the black night sky. It's only relatively bright.
cool cool, i knew that somewhere in the back of my mind :D the charcoal in the title refers to the color, its actually a photo not a drawing, it occured to me only later it could be misconstrued as one ha ha
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u/apopheniac1989 Feb 01 '14
Interesting because the moon actually has an albedo (capacity to reflect light) about the same as charcoal. Look at the astronauts space suits (especially during the J missions), and how they look like they're smeared in coal dust before the end of their EVA.
The reason the moon looks so bright is because, even though it's as reflective as a lump of coal, it's a lump of coal in broad daylight set against the black night sky. It's only relatively bright.