I was discussing lunar eclipses with my son this morning and a question came up that neither of us could explain to our satisfaction. During a total lunar eclipse, the full moon is still visible, but much dimmer than a non-eclipsed full moon. The explanation I've seen is that the eclipsed moon is lit by light reflected off of the Earth. The problem is that the earth is in a "new" phase, for the same reason that a solar eclipse only occurs during a new moon. I think that because the Earth has an atmosphere, there would be a ring of refracted light around the Earth and visible from the moon, but given the small albedo for the moon, that doesn't seem to be enough to explain the amount of light reflected from the moon. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

BTW, this question came up when my son was discussing lunar eclipses with one of his Science Olympiad teammates. His teammate asserted that the moon would be invisible, but my son told him that he had seen a total lunar eclipse and that the moon was very clear. This was a ready-made example of why experimental verification of theory is so important.

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