Revealing Moon's Multi-coloured Beauty

Marcella Julia Pace an Italian photographer took ten Years to capture these 48 colours of the Moon:

The true color of the moon is an off-white to brown-gray shade when its dusty surface is illuminated by the sun. However, our perception of the moon's color and shape is significantly influenced by Earth's atmosphere. Marcella Giulia Pace, an Italian photographer who has been documenting lunar variations for a decade, carefully selected 48 of her images to create a comparative spiral montage.

The diverse range of colors we observe on the moon occurs when it is viewed or photographed through the stratified and irregular layers of gases in Earth's atmosphere. These layers contain minuscule air molecules that scatter light when it interacts with them. Importantly, the structure of these molecules causes blue light to scatter more readily than red or orange light. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced when Pace captures images of the moon as it rises or when it hovers just above the horizon, resulting in a more prominent reddish or orangish glow. Additionally, other atmospheric components, such as water droplets, dust, and smoke from wildfires, also influence the path of light, imparting specific hues to the moon based on the properties of these suspended materials.

Furthermore, the apparent shape of the moon is distorted as its emitted light traverses the varying densities of Earth's atmosphere. Given that the atmosphere near the Earth's surface is much denser than the upper layers, the path of light passing through these different densities becomes bent. Consequently, the source of light from the moon may appear as a compressed ellipse rather than a full lunar disk.