What does the Moon's soil actually look like? Is the regolith really completely gray, as we see in most photographs of the Apollo lunar missions, or is the Moon's soil brown? Black and white Moon or color? Someone on the forums claimed that the soil of the Moon is similar to black soil.
To understand such issues, I did it very simply. Since the average reflectance of lunar soil is known, albedo 7-8%, using a reference gray scale and a professional brightness meter used by filmmakers to determine exposure, I selected an object of the same brightness as the lunar regolith. I used the ground under the window for this. But since the wet soil turned out to be a little darker than the required 7-8%, it had to be mixed with a small amount of cement. And this is what happened.
And in order to accurately determine exactly the color of the lunar regolith, and not just its brightness, I used the X-Rite dtp-41 spectrophotometer that we have at the department of the Institute of Cinematography.
With its help, I selected a material that most closely replicated the spectral reflectance graphs taken from the book “Lunar Soil from the Sea of Plenty.” I drew a section of the visible range with two lines, from 400 to 700 nm (in the figure, these are two blue lines).
In the visible range, the spectral reflection curve of the lunar soil rises almost linearly upward, with the reflectance coefficient being lower in the blue zone of the spectrum and greater in the red zone, which clearly indicates that the lunar soil is not gray, but brown. The numerical values of the three lines corresponding to the diffuse coefficient of the soil of the Sea of Plenty (Luna-16), the soil of the Sea of Tranquility (A-11) and the soil of the Ocean of Storms were transferred to the Excel program. I took out a dark brown piece from a box of plasticine. It turned out that the integral reflection coefficient of dark brown plasticine is the same as that of the soil of the lunar seas.
But the color of the plasticine is more saturated than the color of the lunar surface. Therefore, by adding a small amount of blue plasticine to the brown plasticine, I reduced the color saturation (increased the reflectivity in the blue-green zone). And by adding inclusions of black plasticine, I reduced the overall reflection coefficient. After carefully rolling out the plasticine to a homogeneous mass and measuring it with a spectrophotometer, I obtained almost the same spectral reflectance curve as that of lunar soil samples from the Sea of Tranquility of the Apollo 11 mission.
For comparison, a cube similar in color to lunar soil was photographed together with a Kodak reference gray scale. This is the color of the lunar seas - as in the cube on the right. This is what the Sea of Tranquility should look like, where, according to legend, Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
To get an adequate idea of color, plasticine cubes are laid out on a gray scale (Kodak Gray Card) with a reflectance of 18%. The photo is normalized to a gray field. In s-RGB space, such a gray field with 8-bit color depth should have values of 116-118. Therefore, I can say that in the photograph below (taken, apparently, by an automatic probe two years before the Apollo flight), the color of the lunar surface is conveyed correctly.
For some reason, under this picture there is a caption: “View_from_the_Apollo_11_shows_Earth_rising_above_the_moonss_horizon,” as if this picture was taken by astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
We saw that the astronauts brought back photographs with a different color of lunar regolith:
Many were discouraged by the fact that the Moon turned out to be not just gray, but gray-blue and gray-violet, but not brown at all.
Moon in color (contemporary photograph):
I have reason to believe that the decision that the lunar soil in the photographs of the astronaut landing on the Moon would be completely gray was made two or three years before the start of the lunar expeditions, in 1966 or 1967, based on the Surveyor photographs. And under such gray soil they began to prepare pavilion filming to simulate the landing of people on the Moon.
Below I will explain why the soil in the photographs turned out completely gray. This is not difficult for me to do, since for several years I have been teaching the discipline “Color Science” at the Institute of Cinematography, and issues of color distortion are my favorite topic.
To be continued...
“...this small step is the step of all humanity...” said Neil Armstrong, and a bar with spotlights fell on him.))))))
I always wondered, who filmed TWO funny tumbling astronauts on the Moon, if only TWO landed????????
Stanley, of course, is a great director, but you can’t consider everyone a sucker))) If such a cartoon was shown 50 years ago, this does not mean that it will be shown in the 21st century)))
Yankees are Yankees. Pleasant to the eye.
"...this small step is the step of all humanity..." said Neil Armstrong, and a bar with spotlights fell on him.)))))) "
This is how easy it is to breed a sucker!
This Video
“I’ve always wondered, who filmed TWO funny tumbling astronauts on the Moon, if only TWO landed???”
If you were interested, why didn’t you find out? In the Apollo drawings it is easy to find remote control drives, it is easy to find the name of the operator who controlled these cameras, and with basic knowledge of English it is clear how the astronauts negotiate with the operator about camera angles and direction of movement.
“Stanley, of course, is a great director, but you can’t consider everyone a sucker))) If such a cartoon was shown 50 years ago, this does not mean that it will be shown in the 21st century)))”
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You are absolutely right.
Yes, even if they had not filmed this nonsense in the studio, but simply said that they were flying, it still would not have changed anything.
After all, in fact, they had nothing to fly on.
There weren't even suitable spacesuits.
There was also no special camera with which they allegedly filmed.
And, as real experts assure, with the radiation protection that was available on their supposed “spaceships,” it would have been completely insufficient to move anywhere at all, let alone fly somewhere else and return.
Everything is a well-thought-out, but clumsily concocted Lie.
Unfortunately, this System of the World - the political System - is structured in such a way that NOBODY, not even you and me, benefits from the debunking of this Pindos craft.
The whole point is that if at that time - and even now - the Pindos had been exposed in their “film stupidity”, this would have caused the collapse of the entire (!) ENTIRE inflated American economy with its “priceless” pieces of paper, and after the dollar, all other economies would collapse and
USSR (and Russian) as well.
And if you have even torn 100 bucks in your stash, “under the mattress,” then they too would turn into simple colored paper.
What they actually are, but what their “issuers” manage to skillfully “hide”, using the full power of their corrupt media.
Are you ready to pay for the exposure of Pindostan, your last (well, just everything) and 100 bucks and all the money?
That is, for this honesty you lose EVERYTHING?
I think you need this.
So do I.
And even more so, this nah nah nah is not necessary for ANY Authorities - those who are responsible for “state budgets” and foreign exchange reserves stored in Pindocene securities and everyone else.
NO ONE needs such exposure.
The only question - and this is really true - is that if such an exposure really took place, would everything collapse?
I'm sure so.
The Moon's surface is generally light gray in color, although there are certain parts that are composed of dark gray rock. The Moon has a different color when observed from its surface, from space and from Earth.
The surface of the Moon is mostly made up of light gray rock, and the dark gray spots that can be seen on the Moon are volcanic craters. The more titanium present on the surface of the Moon, the darker its color. Some areas of the Moon's surface are brown-gray, while others are closer to white.
The color of the Moon, which can be seen in photographs from space, most closely resembles the true color of our satellite. Due to less reflection from the Sun during daylight hours, the Moon often appears white during the daytime. At night, the Moon usually has a yellow tint. Depending on the time of year and the different cycles of the Earth, the Moon may take on a darker yellow hue, which makes it appear orange. This satellite shade is most common in the autumn period of the year.
The question in the title seems very strange. After all, everyone has seen the Moon and knows its color. However, on the Internet, you periodically come across the idea of a worldwide conspiracy hiding the true color of our natural satellite.
Discussions about the color of the Moon are part of the vast topic of the “lunar conspiracy.” Some people think that the cement color of the surface, which is present in the photographs of the Apollo astronauts, does not correspond to reality, and “in reality” the color there is different.
A new aggravation of the conspiracy theory was caused by the first images of the Chinese lander Chang'e 3 and the Yutu lunar rover. In the earliest images from the surface, the Moon appeared more like Mars than the silver-gray plain seen in the 60s and 70s.
Not only numerous home-grown whistleblowers, but also incompetent journalists from some popular media outlets rushed to discuss this topic.
Let's try to figure out what the secrets are with this Moon.
The main postulate of the conspiracy theory related to the color of the moon is: “NASA made a mistake in determining the color, so during the Apollo landing simulation it made the surface gray. The Moon is actually brown, and now NASA is hiding all color images of it.”
I came across a similar point of view even before the landing of the Chinese lunar rover, and it is quite simple to refute it:
This is a high-color image from the Galilleo spacecraft taken in 1992, at the beginning of its long journey to Jupiter. This frame alone is enough to understand the obvious thing - the Moon is different, and NASA does not hide it.
Our natural satellite experienced a turbulent geological history: volcanic eruptions raged on it, giant lava seas spilled, and powerful explosions occurred caused by impacts of asteroids and comets. All this significantly diversified the surface.
Modern geological maps, obtained thanks to numerous satellites of the USA, Japan, India, China, demonstrate a variegated diversity of the surface:
Of course, different geological rocks have different compositions and, as a result, different colors. The problem for an outside observer is that the entire surface is covered with homogeneous regolith, which “blurs out” the color and sets one tone over almost the entire area of the Moon.
However, today there are several astronomical survey and image post-processing techniques available that can reveal hidden surface differences:
Here is an image by astrophotographer Michael Theusner, which was taken in multi-channel RGB mode, and processed by the LRGB algorithm. The essence of this technique is that the Moon (or any other astronomical object) is first photographed alternately in three color channels (red, blue and green), and then each channel is subjected to separate processing to express color brightness. An astro camera with a set of filters, a simple telescope and Photoshop are available to almost everyone, so no conspiracy can help hide the color of the Moon. But this will not be the color that our eyes see.
Let's go back to the moon and the 70s.
Published color images from a 70mm Hasselblad camera mostly show us the uniform “cement” color of the Moon.
At the same time, the samples delivered to Earth have a richer palette. Moreover, this is typical not only for Soviet supplies from Luna-16:
But also for the American collection:
However, they have a richer selection, there are brown, gray, and bluish exhibits.
The difference between observations on Earth and on the Moon is that the transportation and storage of these finds cleared them of the surface dust layer. Samples from Luna-16 were generally obtained from a depth of about 30 cm. At the same time, during filming in laboratories, we observe finds in different lighting and in the presence of air, which affects the scattering of light.
My phrase about moon dust may seem dubious to some. Everyone knows that there is a vacuum on the Moon, so there cannot be dust storms like there are on Mars. But there are other physical effects that raise dust above the surface. There is an atmosphere there, but it’s very thin, about the same as at the height of the International Space Station.
The glow of dust in the lunar sky was observed from the surface by both the automated Surveyor landers and Apollo astronauts:
The results of these observations formed the basis of the scientific program of the new NASA spacecraft LADEE, whose name means: Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. Its task is to study lunar dust at an altitude of 200 km and 50 km above the surface.
Thus, the Moon is gray for much the same reason that Mars is red - due to the covering of monochromatic dust. Only on Mars, red dust is raised by storms, and on the Moon, gray dust is raised by meteorite impacts and static electricity.
Another reason that prevents us from seeing the color of the Moon in the photographs of astronauts, it seems to me, is a slight overexposure. If we lower the brightness and look at the place where the surface layer is broken, we can see the difference in color. For example, if we look at the trampled area around the Apollo 11 lander, we will see brown soil:
Subsequent missions carried with them the so-called. “gnomon” is a color indicator that allows you to better interpret the color of a surface:
If we look at it in the museum, we can see that the colors look brighter on Earth:
Now let's look at another image, this time from Apollo 17, which once again confirms the absurdity of accusations of deliberate “bleaching” of the Moon:
You may notice that the excavated soil has a reddish tint. Now, if we lower the light intensity, we can see more of the color differences in the lunar geology:
By the way, it is no coincidence that these photographs in the NASA archive are called “orange soil”. In the original photograph, the color does not reach orange, and after darkening, the color of the gnomon markers approaches those visible on Earth, and the surface acquires more shades. This is probably how the eyes of the astronauts saw them.
The myth about deliberate discoloration arose when some illiterate conspiracy theorist compared the color of the surface and its reflection on the glass of an astronaut’s helmet:
But he was not smart enough to realize that the glass was tinted and the reflective coating on the helmet was gold. Therefore, the change in color of the reflected image is natural. The astronauts worked in these helmets during training, and there the brown tint is clearly visible, only the face is not covered with a gold-plated mirror filter:
When studying archival images from Apollo or modern ones from Chang’e-3, it should be taken into account that the color of the surface is also affected by the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays and camera settings. Here is a simple example when several frames of the same film on the same camera have different shades:
Armstrong himself spoke about the variability of the color of the lunar surface depending on the angle of illumination:
In his interview, he does not hide the observed brown tint of the Moon.
Now about what the Chinese devices showed us before going into a two-week night hibernation. The first frames they took in pink tones were due to the fact that the white balance on the cameras was simply not adjusted. This is an option that all digital camera owners should be aware of. Shooting modes: “daylight”, “cloudy”, “fluorescent lamp”, “incandescent lamp”, “flash” - these are precisely the white balance adjustment modes. It is enough to set the wrong mode and either orange or blue tints begin to appear in the pictures. No one set the Chinese cameras to “Moon” mode, so they took the first shots at random. Later we tuned in and continued shooting in those colors that are not very different from the Apollo frames:
Thus, the “lunar color plot” is nothing more than a delusion based on ignorance of banal things and the desire to feel like a ripper of covers without leaving the couch.
I think the current Chinese expedition will help us get to know our space neighbor even better, and will once again confirm the absurdity of the idea of a NASA lunar conspiracy. Unfortunately, media coverage of the expedition leaves much to be desired. For now, we only have access to screenshots from Chinese news broadcasts. It appears that CNSA no longer wants to disseminate information about its activities by any means. I hope this will change at least in the future.
It seems that everyone has seen the Moon and knows its color. However, on the Internet you periodically come across the idea of a worldwide conspiracy hiding the true color of our natural satellite. Discussions about the color of the Moon are part of the vast topic of the “lunar conspiracy.” Some people think that the cement color of the surface, which is present in the photographs of the Apollo astronauts, does not correspond to reality, and “in reality” the color there is different.
A new aggravation of the conspiracy theory was caused by the first images of the Chinese lander Chang'e 3 and the Yutu lunar rover. In the earliest images from the surface, the Moon appeared more like Mars than the silver-gray plain seen in the 60s and 70s.
Not only numerous home-grown whistleblowers, but also incompetent journalists from some popular media outlets rushed to discuss this topic.
Let's try to figure out what the secrets are with this Moon.
The main postulate of the conspiracy theory associated with the color of the moon is: “ NASA made a mistake in determining the color, so during the Apollo landing simulation it made the surface gray. The Moon Is Actually Brown, And Now NASA Is Hiding All Color Images Of It.”
I came across a similar point of view even before the landing of the Chinese lunar rover, and it is quite simple to refute it:
This is a high-color image from the Galilleo spacecraft taken in 1992, at the beginning of its long journey to Jupiter. This frame alone is enough to understand the obvious thing - the Moon is different, and NASA does not hide it.
Our natural satellite experienced a turbulent geological history: volcanic eruptions raged on it, giant lava seas spilled, and powerful explosions occurred caused by impacts of asteroids and comets. All this significantly diversified the surface.
Modern geological maps, obtained thanks to numerous satellites of the USA, Japan, India, China, demonstrate a variegated diversity of the surface:
Of course, different geological rocks have different compositions and, as a result, different colors. The problem for an outside observer is that the entire surface is covered with homogeneous regolith, which “blurs out” the color and sets one tone over almost the entire area of the Moon.
However, today there are several astronomical survey and image post-processing techniques available that can reveal hidden surface differences:
Here is an image by astrophotographer Michael Theusner, which was taken in multi-channel RGB mode, and processed by the LRGB algorithm. The essence of this technique is that the Moon (or any other astronomical object) is first photographed alternately in three color channels (red, blue and green), and then each channel is subjected to separate processing to express color brightness. An astro camera with a set of filters, a simple telescope and Photoshop are available to almost everyone, so no conspiracy can help hide the color of the Moon. But this will not be the color that our eyes see.
Let's go back to the moon and the 70s.
Published color images from a 70mm Hasselblad camera mostly show us the uniform “cement” color of the Moon.
At the same time, the samples delivered to Earth have a richer palette. Moreover, this is typical not only for Soviet supplies from Luna-16:
But also for the American collection:
However, they have a richer selection, there are brown, gray, and bluish exhibits.
The difference between observations on Earth and on the Moon is that the transportation and storage of these finds cleared them of the surface dust layer. Samples from Luna-16 were generally obtained from a depth of about 30 cm. At the same time, during filming in laboratories, we observe finds in different lighting and in the presence of air, which affects the scattering of light.
My phrase about moon dust may seem dubious to some. Everyone knows that there is a vacuum on the Moon, so there cannot be dust storms like there are on Mars. But there are other physical effects that raise dust above the surface. There is an atmosphere there, but it’s very thin, about the same as at the height of the International Space Station.
The glow of dust in the lunar sky was observed from the surface by both the automated Surveyor landers and Apollo astronauts:
The results of these observations formed the basis of the scientific program of the new NASA spacecraft, whose name means: Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. Its task is to study lunar dust at an altitude of 200 km and 50 km above the surface.
Thus, the Moon is gray for about the same reason as because of the covering monochromatic dust. Only on Mars, red dust is raised by storms, and on the Moon, gray dust is raised by meteorite impacts and static electricity.
Another reason that prevents us from seeing the color of the Moon in the photographs of astronauts, it seems to me, is a slight overexposure. If we lower the brightness and look at the place where the surface layer is broken, we can see the difference in color. For example, if we look at the trampled area around the Apollo 11 lander, we will see brown soil:
Subsequent missions carried with them the so-called. “gnomon” is a color indicator that allows you to better interpret the color of a surface:
If we look at it in the museum, we can see that the colors look brighter on Earth:
Now let's look at another image, this time from Apollo 17, which once again confirms the absurdity of accusations of deliberate “bleaching” of the Moon:
You may notice that the excavated soil has a reddish tint. Now, if we lower the light intensity, we can see more of the color differences in the lunar geology:
By the way, it is no coincidence that these photographs in the NASA archive are called “orange soil”. In the original photograph, the color does not reach orange, and after darkening, the color of the gnomon markers approaches those visible on Earth, and the surface acquires more shades. This is probably how the eyes of the astronauts saw them.
The myth about deliberate discoloration arose when some illiterate conspiracy theorist compared the color of the surface and its reflection on the glass of an astronaut’s helmet:
But he was not smart enough to realize that the glass was tinted and the reflective coating on the helmet was gold. Therefore, the change in color of the reflected image is natural. The astronauts worked in these helmets during training, and there the brown tint is clearly visible, only the face is not covered with a gold-plated mirror filter:
When studying archival images from Apollo or modern ones from Chang’e-3, it should be taken into account that the color of the surface is also affected by the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays and camera settings. Here is a simple example when several frames of the same film on the same camera have different shades:
Armstrong himself spoke about the variability of the color of the lunar surface depending on the angle of illumination:
In his interview, he does not hide the observed brown tint of the Moon.
Now about what the Chinese devices showed us before going into a two-week night hibernation. The first frames they took in pink tones were due to the fact that the white balance on the cameras was simply not adjusted. This is an option that all digital camera owners should be aware of. Shooting modes: “daylight”, “cloudy”, “fluorescent lamp”, “incandescent lamp”, “flash” - these are precisely the white balance adjustment modes. It is enough to set the wrong mode and either orange or blue tints begin to appear in the pictures. No one set the Chinese cameras to “Moon” mode, so they took the first shots at random. Later we tuned in and continued shooting in those colors that are not very different from the Apollo frames:
Thus, the “lunar color plot” is nothing more than a delusion based on ignorance of banal things and the desire to feel like a ripper of covers without leaving the couch.
I think the current Chinese expedition will help us get to know our space neighbor even better, and will once again confirm the absurdity of the idea of a NASA lunar conspiracy. Unfortunately, media coverage of the expedition leaves much to be desired. For now, we only have access to screenshots from Chinese news broadcasts. It appears that CNSA no longer wants to disseminate information about its activities by any means. I hope this will change at least in the future.