Why does the yellow moon sometimes appear?

When the weather is clear, we often see the silvery white moon, but when the weather is not very good, we often see the yellow moon. These two color changes are actually caused by particulate matter in the atmosphere. The moon reflects sunlight. When the night sky is clear and there is less dust and water vapor, the seven colors of the sun, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple, can reach the earth smoothly, and the seven colors will become white after mixing.

However, if there are more particles smaller than 10 micron in the atmosphere, it will absorb or scatter colored light with different wavelengths, especially cyan, blue and purple light with shorter wavelengths. However, red, orange, yellow and green light that are not so easily absorbed or scattered reach the ground, showing a mixed yellow effect. So what we see at this time is the yellow or orange moon.

Other colors

Because when there is a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere, green light will also be filtered out by interference. At this time, the moon will appear orange red. When you look at the moon in foggy days, you will see a typical orange moon. The moon sometimes appears dark red, which is very special. Wait until the total lunar eclipse, when the moon will appear dark red.

At this time, because of the reflection of the earth's atmosphere. During the total lunar eclipse, the earth is blocked between the sun and the moon, but a small part of sunlight will be refracted by the atmosphere and then pass through the earth, enter the shadow of the earth and reach the moon. The dark red moonlight we see is the result of the moon reflecting this light back.