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To: RockinRight

i think we're both wrong. the moon reflects only 7% of the sunlight that hits it, but it sends out approximately 400,000 times less light (14 magnitudes dimmer). I had to get someone smart to explain it to me.


110 posted on 10/01/2004 5:03:39 PM PDT by the herald (i still like pudding; vanilla best)
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To: the herald
i think we're both wrong. the moon reflects only 7% of the sunlight that hits it, but it sends out approximately 400,000 times less light (14 magnitudes dimmer). I had to get someone smart to explain it to me.

To put it another way, only 7% of the sunlight that hits the moon gets reflected. But of that 7%, only a tiny portion gets reflected such that it intersects with the earth since it is radiated in all directions, so we only capture a very tiny percent of that 7%.

By analogy, it would be the difference in light between staring into a flashlight at night and seeing the light of that same flashlight reflected off a not-particularly-reflective distant object.

115 posted on 10/01/2004 5:32:04 PM PDT by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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