Any color changes we see of the moon are caused by the earth's atmosphere. The color of the moon is space is just that of sunlight reflecting off the surface, so doesn't change.<br /><br />On the other hand, our atmosphere has varying amounts of moisture and dust, and the moonlight passes through different amounts of air.<br /><br />When the moon is overhead it passes through the least amount of the atmosphere (60 or 70 miles worth), whereas close to the horizon it is passing through hundreds of miles of atmosphere, which tends to redden it. Dust refracts different colors of light differently than pure air, and than moisture. So the amount of each causes different modifications to the color we perceive.<br /><br />While the moons gravity is lower than the earth's it is more than enough to keep almost anything blasted off the surface. If you look at the crater Copernicus, you can see long "rays" where material that was blasted out from the crater fell back to the surface.<br /><br />For a very energetic impact, a tiny percentage of the material may be accelerated to greater than the moon's escape velocity and goes into orbit around the earth or the sun. Some of the meteorites we have discovered here on earth came from the moon. Not many, but some.<br /><br />Great questions!!<br /><br />Welcome to Space.dom!!!<br /><br />BTW, I'm not frowning at your questions, I'm smiling, and am happy to answer them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>