False claim the moon was too bright to land on | Fact check

Gabrielle Settles, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: The moon landing was staged because it is too bright to land there

A Nov. 8 Facebook post (direct link, archived link) shows two photos: one of the moon illuminating a body of water and another of an astronaut standing on the moon next to the American flag.

“If the moon is bright enough to give light to 'half the earth' at night," reads the post's caption, "wouldn’t the astronauts be absolutely blinded that landed on it, like to the point of not even being able to see."

The caption includes the hashtag #MOONlandingHOAX.

The post was shared more than 500 times in six days.

More from the USA TODAY Fact Check Team:

Our rating: False

The moon does not emit light; it reflects it – similar to Earth. An expert said the moon would not be too bright to prevent a landing. There is ample evidence astronauts have landed and walked on the moon.

The moon's phases dictate how bright it appears for us on Earth

There is abundant evidence showing the moon landing did indeed happen, including photographs, artifacts and videos. Some photos taken on the moon and published by NASA show the dark gray, crater-filled surface the astronauts landed on.

While the moon sometimes appears bright from Earth, that does not mean it would be too bright to land on.

Yan Fernandez, a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida, told USA TODAY that the light reflected off the moon’s surface works much like other objects.

“Everything reflects visible light to some extent," he said. "You turn on a lamp in a room in your house, and you see things in the room because they are reflecting the light being emitted by the lamp’s bulb or LED. You go outside on a dark night and shine a flashlight on some rocks, they will reflect the light, and that's why you can see them. The moon is no different. It's just that the source of the light is the sun.”

NASA breaks it down further. It explains that half of the moon is always lit by the sun (the day side) while the other half is dark (the night side). As the moon rotates, we can see fractions of the moon's lit sides, called phases. The moon appears brighter depending on what phase it's in.

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But the moon's brightness as it appears on Earth does not affect its appearance up close. Features of the moon are easily visible from orbit, according to Fernandez.

"If you were in a spaceship orbiting the Moon, then you'd see a lot of the geographic features: mountains, craters, valleys, dried-up lava beds, all kinds of things," he said.

Each of the six Apollo missions that landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972 occurred on the day side of the moon.

USA TODAY has previously debunked other claims that tried to prove the moon landings were fake, including claims involving a photo in President Richard Nixon's office, video footage and Wikileaks.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Moonlight doesn't prove astronaut landings were a hoax | Fact check