For 10 years, Italian photographer Marcella Giulia Pace kept returning to the same celestial subject, the full moon. Patiently and persistently, she documented its changing colours as seen from Earth. Her long-term project culminated in a remarkable spiral montage of 48 photographs, each showing the moon in a different hue.
The moon itself, of course, is a dusty brown-gray orb when lit directly by the Sun. What we see from Earth is something quite different. Our planet's atmosphere transforms the moon's appearance, scattering light in ways that affect both its colour and its shape.
When the moon hangs low on the horizon, its glow must pass through denser layers of air. This bends the light and scatters shorter blue wavelengths more intensely, leaving the disk tinted with warmer reds and oranges. Suspended materials in the atmosphere, such as water droplets, dust, or even wildfire smoke, add further variations, imprinting colours unique to those particles.
The atmosphere also alters the moon's outline. Because air near the Earth's surface is much denser than the layers above, light bends unevenly as it travels through. The result is an optical illusion in which the moon, instead of a perfect disk, appears squashed into a flattened ellipse.
Earth's One And Only Moon
Among the eight major planets of the solar system, Earth alone is accompanied by a single moon. Over millennia, this steadfast companion has inspired myth and poetry, guided explorers, and influenced life itself through its gravitational pull and steady glow.
Born most likely from a colossal collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body, the moon began as a molten mass of magma before cooling into the familiar satellite we see today. It forever presents the same face to Earth: a mottled expanse of ancient lava plains and cratered highlands. Its far side, hidden from view until the spacecraft revealed it, is an entirely different world of rugged terrain and sweeping highlands.
Whether golden at the horizon or silver at its zenith, the moon is both constant and ever-changing. Pace's decade-long collection is a reminder of this duality, that our nearest neighbour in space, though unchanging in essence, can appear in an astonishing spectrum of shades when viewed through Earth's shifting veil of air.
9 Fun Facts About The Moon
- Perfect Illusion: The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but also about 400 times farther away. That's why they appear the same size in our sky.
- Tidal Partner: The Moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans, creating tides that shape coastlines, marine life cycles, and even helped early life evolve.
- Locked Gaze: The Moon always shows us the same face because it's 'tidally locked', which means it rotates on its axis at the same rate it orbits Earth.
- Far Side Mystery: The "dark side" isn't always dark; it gets sunlight, too. It just always faces away from Earth and has a rougher, more mountainous terrain.
- Drifting Away: The Moon is slowly moving about 3.8 cm farther from Earth each year, which means eclipses won't be a perfect fit forever.
- Ancient Impact: Scientists believe the Moon was born from debris after Earth collided with a Mars-sized body about 4.5 billion years ago.
- Silent Witness: Without air or water to erode them, lunar footprints left by Apollo astronauts will last for millions of years.
- Night Light: The Moon reflects sunlight, shining bright enough to guide nocturnal animals, influence human culture, and inspire myths across civilisations.
- Life Shaper: Without the Moon stabilising Earth's tilt, our seasons would be chaotic, and the climate far less stable for life.
(Kirti Pandey is a senior independent journalist)