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Moonlight



 

Moonlight is the light that comes to Earth from the Moon. This light does not originate from the Moon, but is actually reflected sunlight. The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the current lunar phase, but even the full moon typically provides only a faint illumination of about 0.2 lx, so the full moon is about 500,000 times fainter than the sun. When the moon is viewed at high altitude at tropical latitudes, the illuminance can reach 1 lx.[1] The color of moonlight, particularly near full moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to most artificial light sources.

Moonlight has also been found to be polarized by scientists by studying the locomotion habits of dung beetles[2][3]

See also

Look up moonlight in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ^ Bunning, Erwin; and Moser, Ilse (Apr. 1969). "Interference of moonlight with the photoperiodic measurement of time by plants, and their adaptive reaction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 62 (4): 1018–1022. doi:10.1073/pnas.62.4.1018. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
  2. ^ http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Moons/TheMoon/DungBeetle.html
  3. ^ Animal Atlas (TV Show). Nine Giraffes episode
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Moonlight". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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