Re: Whuuu?
Not that complicated if you've ever had to look at radar return waveforms. A bit puzzling if not.
If the moon were a glassy smooth sphere, you'd only get one return signal -- from the center of the moon. Any other reflections would go off to your sides. But the moon is bumpy. Craters and such. So in addition to the return from the center point, you'll get some signal bounced back from other lunar features. Those are further away from you than the center of the moon. It takes a tiny bit longer for your signal to get to them and a bit longer for the signal reflected from them to get back. Result: instead of one tidy set of pulses that is mirror image of your outgoing signal, you'll get a reflected signal that's smeared out over (I'd guess) 20 or so milliseconds.
I may have some of the details wrong. It's not like I spend my spare time bouncing radio signals off the moon. But I think the above is the general idea.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
