Ask Ethan: How Bright Is The Earth As Seen From The Moon?

“What would be brighter: a full moon or a full earth from the moon? Would the brightness remain constant?”

The full Moon is undoubtedly bright. As viewed from the Earth’s surface, it’s the second brightest object of all, after the Sun, and is more than 1,500 times brighter than Venus. In fact, the full Moon is over 40 times brighter than the entire rest of the night sky combined, and can outshine even a big city when seen right next to one. But the Earth has the Moon beat on the only two intrinsic properties that matter: size and reflectivity. The much larger size of Earth means that a “full Earth” as seen from the Moon has 13 times the surface area as the full Moon as seen from Earth. But on top of that, the Moon, as bright as it appears in the sky, is actually a relatively dull grey in color, more similar to charcoal than it is to a snowy white. The Earth, on the other hand, has icecaps, clouds, and highly reflective continents, particularly where deserts are involved.

So how bright is the Earth as seen from the Moon by comparison, and what does this tell us about these worlds? Find out on this edition of Ask Ethan!

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Of course you can!

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