Page 139 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

Shade of a Gazebo

On the Moon, an area which lies in shadow would be significantly darker. The Moon has no
atmosphere, and this fact alone causes shaded areas to have far less light. Added to this, the lunar
surface, or regolith, is on average less reflective than the surface of the Earth. The reflective
properties of the lunar regolith have been compared to that of asphalt.

Asphalt Road

The reflective characteristic of any object or material is referred to as its “albedo.” A perfectly
reflective surface has an albedo of 1, whereas a surface that reflects no light has an albedo of 0. In
our Solar System, the planet with the highest albedo is Venus. It is estimated at 0.75. The Earth by
comparison has an albedo of 0.31, while the Moon has an albedo of 0.12. These numbers, however,
represent the average reflectivity of an entire planet as viewed from space. A little more than half
(55%) of the light of the Sun reflected back into space from the Earth comes from clouds in the
Earth’s atmosphere. Without clouds, the Earth would have an albedo of approximately 0.15, which
is still higher than the albedo of the Moon.*
[Source: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/warming_clouds_albedo_feedback.html]

On average, it is estimated that only 7% of the light striking the lunar surface is reflected back. The
combination of the low reflective characteristics of the lunar surface, and the absence of an
atmosphere to scatter light, results in shadows which are significantly darker on the Moon than they
are on Earth. To demonstrate the pronounced blackness of shadows on the Moon, let us refer once
more to a recent image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.