If Moonlight is just the Sun’s light reflecting off the moon, and when Sunlight passes through the atmosphere it turns yellow, why does the daytime Moon look white?

Question

I know that in space the Sun looks white, but still.

In: Physics

Answer 1

In the day the Sun is by far the most powerful light source, which causes the sky to glow blue with Rayleigh scattering.

That overwhelms any possible colour cast you’d get off the moon.

In any case, the orange effect you get from the Sun is most prevalent when the Sun is low in the sky (sunrise or sunset), and it has a thicker section of atmosphere to go through. That scatters all the blue away so you’re left with red.

The same thing happens with the Moon when it’s low in the sky, for the same reasons, [see this photograph](https://www.almanac.com/sites/default/files/styles/primary_image_in_article/public/image_nodes/low-moon.jpg?itok=3OoAGm7U)