Expert: Ed - 10/6/2005

Question
My step-dad and I were on our way home at night one day, and said "You know those dark spots on the moon are reflections of the continents!"..neither me nor my mom believed him because we always thought that they were craters? Who is right?

Answer
Corey,
You and your mom are right.  They're craters.  

However, don't give your dad too much grief please, because I bet I know what he was thinking of.  He just got slighgtly confused in remembering a cool fact.

When there is a total lunar eclipse, the Earth's atmosphere has an impact on what the moon looks like.  It appears reddish.  This is pretty much the only time when anything that's part of the Earth can cause visible changes to the appearance of any heavenly body.  It happens because the sun's rays are filtered through our atmosphere, and reddish light is more able to penetrate our atmosphere:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/356781.asp?cpl=l&cp1=1

Maybe that is NOT what your dad was thinking of, but I hope you give him the benefit of the doubt.  It sounds to me like he was being serious, and had remembered something, but just had it slightly wrong...  That's doing better than most people.

I hope this was helpful.  Keep Looking Up!
--Ed