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Why is the moon red during a lunar eclipse?

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I wish to contest the conventional theory.

Roughly speaking, it states that the redness emanates from the Earth's atmosphere.

{Intuition A} However, there is no empirical evidence to back this up. There is no red light emananting from the Earth's atmosphere, when we view the Earth from space.

{Intuition B} So where could the red light be coming from? Well, it just so happens that the majority of nearby stars are red dwarves.

{Intuitive conclusion} The moon's redness during the eclipse is the ambient light of the surrounding stars, condensed, or magnified by the natural geometry of the moon's convex shape.

........................

This is easiest to explain by means of diagrams.

Diagram I

http://www.poseidons.net/light/lunar%20eclipse%20A.gif

This is the conventional theory. My first problem with this idea is that there is no red 'halo' (my term) visible when we view the Earth from space.

http://www.poseidons.net/light/lunar%20eclipse%20B.gif

My second problem, is that even if such a 'halo' were evident (which it is not), it would have to be significantly brighter than the lunar eclipse, as the majority of such red light would be reflected into space, and very little of it would be reflected back onto the Earth.

Solution :

This is the inverse geometry of the second diagram. The red light from surrounding red dwarfs (too dim to be seen normally) is condensed by the convex shape of the moon's surface.

.............................
Possible disputing points :

Q: Why do we not see this red light on the dark side during a crescent moon?
A: The Earth reflects a substantial amount of light back onto the dark side of the moon which simply overpowers it.

Q: You are a Philosopher, not a scientist, so just believe what wikipedia says. They know more than you, you buffoon, Poseidon!
A: f#$%#$%$#%#$%!!!!

Q: Why not take this to a science forum, this is not philosophy!
A: Everything is philosophy, and science is so comfortable on the laurels of previous generations, that it has become scientism : IE dogma.
............................

@Poseidon,

Posioden,

It's because the Gods sacrfice a goat and spill it's blood upon the moon. There you are, that's not scientific dogma...

iconoclast.

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

Posioden,

It's because the Gods sacrfice a goat and spill it's blood upon the moon. There you are, that's not scientific dogma...

iconoclast.

What a relief! Sarcasm! I was expecting someone to just dogmatically sprout the standard scientific dogma.

I did see a photo of this supposed 'halo'. But the very faint light was actually yellow in color and very very faint, thus it would be impossible for such a small amount of (yellow) light to reflect off the moon (As my diagram shows.)

@Poseidon,

Posiedon,

Okay. I don't know the standard scientific dogma on this question - hell, I didn't even know that the moon does appear red during a lunar eclipse, but I understand scientific principles. So here's my first question. From where does the moon appear to be red? Is it just from the surface of the earth - i.e. when reflected light is filtered by the atmosphere, or also from space?

iconoclast.

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

Posiedon,
From where does the moon appear to be red? Is it just from the surface of the earth - i.e. when reflected light is filtered by the atmosphere, or also from space?

iconoclast.

The orthodox theory (wiki it), says that the red light emanates from the Earth, but there is no evidence at all to support this.

I claim that it must come from space (nearby red dwarfs), because that is the only red light source available. The geometry I have used backs this up.

If the red light came from Earth's atmosphere, then the atmosphere should have a red glow at night; or at least, this red glow should be visible from space, which it certainly is not.

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

I claim that it must come from space (nearby red dwarfs), because that is the only red light source available. The geometry I have used backs this up.

If the red light came from Earth's atmosphere, then the atmosphere should have a red glow at night; or at least, this red glow should be visible from space, which it certainly is not.

Could be - I've no idea; but from an admittedly-amateurish viewpoint (namely mine) your explanation certainly sounds plausible. It seems I've heard this issue being brought up to support other arguments; although what those were escapes me. Damn my memory.

And this....

iconoclast wrote:

It's because the Gods sacrfice a goat and spill it's blood upon the moon. There you are, that's not scientific dogma...

... is simply precious. I'm going to bookmark Ironclast's post and refer back whenever I need a good laugh. I've done this several times now and it never ceases to illicit uncontrollable giggling - need to be careful, gonna wake the wife up.

:a-ok:

@Khethil,

The Earth's atmosphere acts as a lens to create this affect. Shorter wavelengths of the visible light spectrum are absorbed (by our atmosphere) so that the longest wavelength (red) is what we see.

@John W Kelly,

John W. Kelly wrote:

The Earth's atmosphere acts as a lens to create this affect. Shorter wavelengths of the visible light spectrum are absorbed (by our atmosphere) so that the longest wavelength (red) is what we see.

But we do not see it.
There are no photos from space of a red glow emanating from our atmosphere.

And; at night, the atmosphere is not red.

Where is the empirical evidence?

@Poseidon,

'There is no dark side of the moon, matter of fact, it's all dark.' Does the moon shine bronze to yellow because it simply reflects light from our sun or absorb it. This is the closest I can come to question fact over the possibility of theory but a red giant appears in the theory I like best.

I believe I developed this from the Mule, one of Asimov's portrayals. Beyond our belief in vision, lies a projected hologram of a red giant. A vision that incubates us and all else between our orbit of the sun from the universe beyond us. The moon like some Dan Brown, Illuminati symbol, cannot lie to us and reflects this halo of a hologram, when sheilded from the light that projects our prison wall. Who is hidden and why.

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

But we do not see it.
There are no photos from space of a red glow emanating from our atmosphere.

And; at night, the atmosphere is not red.

Where is the empirical evidence?

Have you ever seen how the Moon looks when it rises from the horizon? The reddish color is from the Sun's light being altered by the Earth's atmosphere, just like what happens to clouds. Once the Moon rises higher in the night sky, this reddness disappears. This is similar to light passing though a prism. Think of the Earth's atmophere acting as this prism. You won't see this effect from space because your vantage point would be different. Any change in the wavelength of light also changed the light's color. The color yellow (the Moon's normal reflected color) has a shorter wavelength than the color red (Moon during eclipse).

@John W Kelly,

If we stood in a line between the earth and the redness on the moon, and faced the earth, we would see red. But we do not.

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

If we stood in a line between the earth and the redness on the moon, and faced the earth, we would see red. But we do not.

Correct, because we would not be looking through the Earth's atmosphere. This is the key! The Moon doesn't appear to turn red from any vantage point except Earth.

@John W Kelly,

from space it is also not red

and

only some surise/sunsets are red, and they are seen from the earths atmosphere

and

the red sunset is caused by dust or smog as in clear weather it is not red

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

only some surise/sunsets are red

This is because of certain variations in temperature and humidity.

@John W Kelly,

And yet, all lunar eclipses are red.

@Poseidon,

That is because there is no variation in the Moon's position (relative the Earth and Sun) during a lunar eclipse...it must be in this exact position for an eclipse to occur. Think of it this way, if the Earth had no atmosphere, we on Earth wouldn't see a red Moon, as it would be completely dark.

@John W Kelly,

So then what has that got to do with sunsets being red only sometimes?
Surely if the occasional red sunset has any effect, then the lunar eclipse would only be red occasionally?

Thus the red sunset has nothing to do with it, because either :
A) the sunset would always be red,
or
B) the lunar eclipse would only sometimes be red.

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

So then what has that got to do with sunsets being red only sometimes?
Surely if the occasional red sunset has any effect, then the lunar eclipse would only be red occasionally?

Thus the red sunset has nothing to do with it, because either :
A) the sunset would always be red,
or
B) the lunar eclipse would only sometimes be red.

The sunrise is only an example of how the atmosphere can scatter the light of the Sun sometimes. This is because the Sun can rise from different points on the eastern horizon due to different seasons, and/or different weather conditions. We don't have these variances of the Sun's position during a lunar eclipse, as the Earth must be between the Sun and Moon. Light of a longer wavelength will always be redshifted.

@John W Kelly,

Another possibility :

The red of the moon is the ambient light of the surrounding universe, but not nec from red dwarfs. Because of the Doppler effect, most objects (except nearby ones) have the red shift.

The nearby red dwarfs, add to this, but to what extent the cause is the red dwarfs, or the red shift of the doppler effect is not really possible to ascertain from thought experiments.

The theory that it is caused by the Earth's atmosphere is not convincing to me at all. If it were to do with refraction, then it would have a rainbow effect.

No other light goes red from passing through the Earth's atmosphere, so why should the moon's?

Actually, the moon emits no light of its own, so it should be black. Such light as it does reflect has been described as coming from Earth originally, thus, if it did, then such red light should be seen from space when we observe the dark side of the Earth. But we do not.

:flowers:

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

The theory that it is caused by the Earth's atmosphere is not convincing to me at all. If it were to do with refraction, then it would have a rainbow effect. :flowers:

Not if some of the visible light is absorbed or scattered and some is not.

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