Astronomers Detect Signs of Life on Earth by Looking at the Moon!

With an unusual source of light: Earth’s Shine, or light from Earth reflect back to us on the moon, Michael F. Sterzik, Stefano Bagnulo, and Enric Palle explain that it is way of understanding the correct amount of vegetation and cloud cover. Stuart Gary (author of the article) explains how it works: “Light passing through the Earth's atmosphere contains a tell-tale spectrum revealing the elements within the gas. It is also strongly polarized by scattering from air molecules, aerosols and cloud particles, and by reflection off the oceans and land.” This technique is called spectropolarimetry This technique allowed them to know more that they wouldn’t have known without it. Some molecules are: ozone, oxygen, methan and water vapour. These analysis consented to find out ocean surface, clouds and vegetation.