The surface materials (
regoliths) of airless bodies (in fact, the majority of bodies in the
Solar System) are strongly non-Lambertian and exhibit the
opposition effect, which is a strong tendency to reflect light straight back to its source, rather than scattering light diffusely. The geometric albedo of these bodies can be difficult to determine because of this, as their
reflectance is strongly peaked for a small range of phase angles near zero. The strength of this peak differs markedly between bodies, and can only be found by making measurements at small enough phase angles. Such measurements are usually difficult due to the necessary precise placement of the observer very close to the incident light. For example, the Moon is never seen from the Earth at exactly zero phase angle, because then it is being eclipsed. Other Solar System bodies are not in general seen at exactly zero phase angle even at
opposition, unless they are also simultaneously located at the
ascending or descending node of their orbit, and hence lie on the
ecliptic. In practice, measurements at small nonzero phase angles are used to derive the parameters which characterize the directional reflectance properties for the body (
Hapke parameters). The reflectance function described by these can then be extrapolated to zero phase angle to obtain an estimate of the geometric albedo. For very bright, solid, airless objects such as
Saturn's moons
Enceladus and
Tethys, whose total reflectance (
Bond albedo) is close to one, a strong
opposition effect combines with the high Bond albedo to give them a geometric albedo above unity (1.4 in the case of Enceladus). Light is preferentially reflected straight back to its source even at low
angle of incidence such as on the limb or from a slope, whereas a Lambertian surface would scatter the radiation much more broadly. A geometric albedo above unity means that the intensity of light scattered back per unit solid angle towards the source is higher than is possible for any Lambertian surface. ==Stars==