The color of the moon

From:  "pam"

why is the moon sometimes orangish-red looking?

Nick was the first to send us this answer: 

The color of the moon can depend on how much sun is hitting it from behind the earth or how much smog there is in the air when you look at the moon.

KJ shared these thoughts:

The Moon appears red sometimes for the same reason the sky is orangish red at sunset, or blue during the day. The suns light hits the gasses in the atmosphere at different angles and we see it a different angles also. We just see it as a different part of the rainbow of light.

TB faithfully answered with this: 

The Moon appears white most of the time because it reflects the sunlight falling on it. In the morning and evening the Moon may appear red due to the bending of the reflected light in the Earth's atmosphere.

Michelle shared this information with us: 

Orangeish-red moon- The moon's visibility is due to the fact that the sun's light will reflect off the moon's surface back to us, and into your eyes. Sometimes it is red because the sun's light has passed through our atmosphere before hitting the moon (will occur tomorrow night in an eclipse, Nov 8th). Sometimes the angle the moon is at causes the light to cross our atmosphere at a low angle which can also give it a red color. But mostly, it's our atmosphere that is to blame.

peep muttered this: 

the moon is reddish-orange because of the light it is reflecting from the earth.

ColorMe came up with this: 

for the question about why the moon sometimes looks different colors, what happens is that the pollution from us people is in the air and from that the pollution does not let all of the light rays pass and sometimes it distorts the light rays and so the light rays that come to our eyes is not what it started out as

bigjason believed this: 

dust. when the moon is low on the horizon the light goes through so many particles of dust it becomes tinted. the sun is the same. the sun is mostly white and only appears orange due to the dust and pollution in the air.

C.H.U.D. shared these views: 

This usually happens during an eclipse. Light bounces off the Earth before it hits the moon. The atmosphere scatters blue light more than red light (why the sky is blue) and so what comes out the other side is red (why sunsets are red). This reddish light bounces off the moon, comes back to Earth and goes into your eyes.

Bill Anderson finished off with this: 

The moon is sometimes orange/red looking because of "Raleigh scattering". This occurs when there is dust or smoke in the atmosphere, scattering light closer to the blue end of the spectrum and permitting light closer to the red end to pass through the atmosphere. A similar effect can be achieved by shining a torch or flashlight through soapy water.