Why is the moon red during its sunrise or sunset?

If you ever had to watch the sunrise or sunset of the night light, then for sure at that moment your attention was attracted by its unusual color and size. Why is the moon red and large when it is near the horizon? If the size can somehow be explained with an optical illusion connected with the refraction of light, then what about the bright orange tint? In the old days, when people were not yet so literate as to understand why the moon was red at certain times, an unusual color was regarded as a dark omen of terrible events. But how do scientists explain this phenomenon in our time?

Metamorphosis of color

If you look at the Earth's satellite from space (you do not need to strain your imagination - the astronauts have long taken pictures of it), then we will see a light gray ball, perfectly illuminated by the Sun. Astronauts do not puzzle over why the moon is red, since the color of the satellite changes only if you look at it from the earth's surface. When the night star only begins to rise above the horizon, it looks like a big orange circle. Our planet makes a turn around its axis. The moon rises higher above the horizon, while its color changes. First, the orange shade turns into yellow, and after a while - in white and yellow. When the Moon takes a position above the observer's head, it almost becomes light gray. Naturally, in reality the satellite of the Earth does not change its color. The whole secret is that we look at it shining through the atmosphere, and this is like looking at something through a veil.

Why is the moon red in the morning?

Before the light reflected from the satellite reaches our eyes, it must pass through the air, consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, other gases. They, along with the smallest particles of dust, smoke and other contaminants, inevitably change the spectral composition of light, significantly shifting it to the red side. That's why the moon is red at an early hour. This effect is especially noticeable in windy, sultry weather or during fires, when microscopic soil particles are entrained in the flow upwards and, without having enough time to settle, hang for hours in the atmosphere. There is another explanation for why the moon is red. It consists in the fact that the short-wave rays of the solar spectrum, upon reaching the Earth, are scattered, while the long-wave rays pass through the atmosphere and are reflected from the earth satellite. They also give the night light a red tint.

Why does the moon sometimes seem huge?

In some photographs, it can be seen that the satellite of the Earth, being above the horizon, looks incredibly large. Sometimes this phenomenon can be seen and most, and therefore it is not necessary to say that the size of the moon is overestimated on the pictures artificially. There are several explanations for this fact. First, this optical illusion is associated with an interesting feature of the human eye - irradiation: bright light figures on a dark background always seem larger than their real sizes. Secondly, according to the theory proposed back in the 60's. James Rock and Lloyd Kaufmanov, our brain for some reason "believes" that the shape of the celestial dome is not correct, but as if flattened by a hemisphere. For this reason, the objects on the horizon appear larger than those at the zenith. And despite the fact that the eye marks the constant angular dimension of the Moon (about 0.5 degrees), the brain automatically makes a correction for the distance, and we get an enlarged image of the observed object. However, so far, scientists have not decided which of the proposed versions is the most plausible.