Anders Lindman
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2010
- Messages
- 13,833
Magic Dust.
No, ordinary moon minerals, such as a reflective spot on a moon rock.
Magic Dust.
So THAT'S why my GPS system never works... oh wait, it does. In accordance with general relativity, no less.
My comment wasn't a question. You've just invented a new kind of lunar regolith, never before known to science, that happens to magically exhibit all the properties you need in order for your thought-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment theory to seem reasonable.
Sheesh.
I meant the results from the measurements: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/04-15MoonLight.asp
"“Near full moon, the strength of the returning light decreases by a factor of ten.” said first author Tom Murphy, associate professor of physics at the University of California ... their instrument detects only a tenth as much light returns most nights. And when the moon is full the results are ten times worse."
And I STILL mean measurements of the actual Moon. Of which no part has yet revealed behavior similar to what you describe.
So your magic shiny spot is so rare it has never shown up before, ever, as a single glint of light from any other part of the Moon. Nor has any part of the Moon ever been seen to darken (or go non-shiny) in full sunlight and restore again during the night.
Yup.But has many different spots on the moon been tested with a laser from Earth?
Yet that has not happened. Why not?I predict that more such reflective spots will be found. And the spots will not appear darkened in the sunlight. The spots, such as highly reflective patches on moon rocks, will appear bright on photographs.
There is a reason you haven't seen them.The spots will be small and only show up on very zoomed in photographs of the moon surface. I haven't seen any such closeup photographs (not counting the Apollo studio shots).
Yup.
I did a quick web search and found nothing about that! Are you sure that many such tests have been done? All I found was about lasers directed at the supposed mirror on the moon.
Yup. Lasers were bounced off the moon before any Apollo mission. Research, it hurts but it works.
Aha! BEFORE the Apollo missions. To find a suitable reflective spot on the moon to use as a 'mirror' no doubt. He he.
I did a quick web search and found nothing about that! Are you sure that many such tests have been done? All I found was about lasers directed at the supposed mirror on the moon.
Why are you covering up the information?
I only did a few web searches. So maybe there is information about other laser-moon tests to be found but I didn't find anything right away.
Anders: even a patch of lunar regolith a km square, perfectly flat, and perfectly reflective, would not give the same behavior when light is shined on it as the retroreflector.
The retroreflector, within a large range of angles, returns a photon down the path it arrived from.
A mirror will only do that if it is perfectly perpendicular to the photon's path. Otherwise the photon goes off on an angle, and does not return along its arrival path.
Because the Earth is rotating, the angle from any beam of light from a single spot on Earth will be constantly changing. There could be only one instant when the shiny regolith was perpendicular to the light beam.
But what if calculations were made for common moon minerals and they fit my hypothesis?
The basic premise is that the reflective material they shine the laser light on, on the moon, is natural.
I predict that more such reflective spots will be found.
And the spots will not appear darkened in the sunlight. The spots, such as highly reflective patches on moon rocks, will appear bright on photographs. The spots will be small and only show up on very zoomed in photographs of the moon surface.
Natural retro-reflection on the lunar surface accounts for only a small increase (i.e., less than a factor of 2) over Lambert's model. Sorry, the numbers don't add up.