3 ms·
But the light coming from the moon is a combination of diffuse and specular reflection... and again (just like for the black body argument) the fraction of ligh
by kurthr 8y ago
But the light coming from the moon is a combination of diffuse and specular reflection... and again (just like for the black body argument) the fraction of light which is specular is most important. The fact that the moon subtends 0.5deg out of 180, while reflecting more than 10% of light (12% bond albedo) suggests to me that what we see is not only lambertian (or cos2) diffuse reflection, but it depends on absorption so I don't know enough to calculate.
- ummonk 8y agoWhoa. I don't think most of the rest is specular reflection, since we never see any specular highlights on the moon, but if it is non-Lambertian, it might be possible to heat it up better than if the moon were actually a black-body or pefect Lambertian scatterer. Thanks for pointing this out; I seem to have learnt of a new phenomenon I wasn't previously aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_surge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_surge
- kurthr 8y agoActually, I was reading a very old article that some astronomers (lunonomers?) had seen intermittant specular reflections of small patches on the moon, with some calculations estimating size. https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(68)90077-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(68)90077-8 At this point I almost think an experimental measurement of temperature equilibrium would be publishable from one of the old re/frac/flectors you can put your head into.