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Why does the moon sometimes looks red?

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Typically the moon in the sky look white, some yellow, which is logical because it reflects sunlight.

But as you say, we sometimes see the red moon, which has inspired countless superstitions and nonsensical theories about (like it's a bad omen, or the like).

Actually there's nothing supernatural foreboding or red moon, since the phenomenon is due to the scattering of light passing through the atmosphere when it is lower in the sky.

It turns out that when it is high, the light coming undergoing a minor portion of atmosphere before reaching us, so that the phenomenon is more or less negligible. But when it is lower on the relative sky to an observer, the light coming has gone through a thick layer of atmosphere that produces the optical phenomenon that I mentioned: the red light is deflected less than the rest of the spectrum, so to get to this observer, the moon looks red.

A particular and amazing case where we see this color on the moon during a lunar eclipse; the phenomenon is the same as the light reaching the edges of the moon has gone through a layer of Earth's atmosphere (looks more red or orange border).

The phenomenon of light scattering can also occur in other conditions such as in cities heavily contaminated by smog (or ash from any source, for example after a fire), since airborne particles cause the same phenomenon as described in the atmosphere, which could generate the same phenomenon of a red moon but now in positions higher in the sky.

I find it has become more than clear.

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