What is a “Moon Tan”?

29 September 2014

The Short Answer (TSA)

            A “moon tan” is supposed to be something like a suntan.  But the “moon tan” comes only from the light of the moon.

            Is there such a thing as a moon tan? 

            Well, I would so hate the spoil the mystery.  I’m tempted not to say anything. 

            Some say that the Moon doesn't reflect all types of the sun’s light.  So, when you get a tan, it comes from the sun’s ultraviolet light.  If the moon doesn't reflect ultraviolet light, then you couldn't get a tan from the moon.  Some don't agree, but it seems that the moon does reflect some ultraviolet light.

See: Yahoo Answers – “Is there such a thing as a moon tan?”

            The real problem with a “moon tan” is that the moon reflects so very little of the sun’s light.  On the moon’s brightest day of year, it reflects much, much less that 1/1,000th of the light from the sun on the sun’s dimmest day of the year.  So, there just isn't enough ultraviolet in moonlight to give you a tan.  

            Unless someone develops a technology to collect moonbeams and focus them on people, we may never know.  Of course, with all the interest in energy from the sun, who would bother with the moon?

            Richard and Monica Chapin of Tucson, Arizona would.  They have built a “moon beam collector.”  But the “jury is still out” on what effects it has on people, places, or things.

See: Moonstruck flock to Arizona light collector

            In the meantime, The Urban Dictionary may have the best solution to the mystery of the “moon tan.”  The dictionary lists “moon tan” as a sarcastic term referring to someone so pasty white that he or she looks like they've never been anywhere near the sun. 

            Examples: “Nice moon tan.”  - or -  “How ya do’in, Moon Tan?”

The Urban Dictionary: “moon tan”

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri
(& Belleville, Illinois)
29 September 2014
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