Question

In how much time does moonlight reach the earth?
A. 1.3 seconds
B. 13 seconds
C. 1.3 minutes
D. 13 minutes

Answer 1

Hint: Moonlight mostly consists of sunlight and a little earthlight. This sunlight and earthlight is reflected from the parts of the lunar surface. It takes more than 8 minutes for sunlight to reach earth.

Complete answer: It takes moonlight around 1.3 seconds to reach the earth. If we are to become more precise then it takes 1.26 seconds to reach earth. Bluish is the colour that moonlight has or it is how it appears to our eyes. It is also described as ‘silvery’ even though there is no inherent silver quality in moonlight. The albedo of the moon is 0.136 and this means that only 13.6 percent of the incident sunlight is reflected from the surface of the moon.

In the earth’s atmosphere the moonlight scatters and this leads to the brightness of the night sky increasing. Apart from this one more result of moonlight is that it reduces the contrast between dimmer stars and the background. This is the reason why many astronomers avoid having observing sessions during the time of a full moon.

There are a lot of superstitions which are attached to moonlight like - blindness, swelling, distortion, etc. Meat which is exposed to moonlight in tropical climates is believed to become rapidly putrid.

Therefore the correct answer is option A.


Note: The only proper natural satellite of earth is the moon. Its diameter is one quarter of the earth’s and this makes it the largest natural satellite in the solar system relative to the size of its planet. The fifth largest satellite in the solar system is the moon.