Explore the fascinating hues of the 8 planets in our solar system, each painted by its unique composition. From the grey tones of terrestrial planets with oxidized minerals to the vibrant colors of gas giants, understanding planetary colors offers insights into their makeup and mysteries.
Besides composition, the atmosphere greatly affects the color we see by reflecting and absorbing sunlight. It also controls the presence of water and vegetation, altering the visible colors from space, like on Earth.
Mercury
Color: Dark gray with a rocky look
Mercury is hard to photograph from Earth due to its proximity to The Sun. However, spacecraft like the MESSENGER probe and Mariner 10 have captured clear images. These photos provide the most accurate views of Mercury’s true colors.
Mercury’s surface is grey and riddled with craters due to impacts from space rocks. This terrestrial planet is composed of iron, silicate rock, and nickel. Its atmosphere contains gases like hydrogen, potassium, calcium, helium, and sodium. The rocky landscape creates various gray tones.
Venus
Color: Grayish/white
Venus’ color changes based on your position. This planet has a thick atmosphere full of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. From orbit, you see sulfuric acid clouds, making the surface invisible. This gives the planet a yellowish look from space.
I’ve assumed Venus is greyish due to its abundant igneous basalt and lack of water or vegetation. The atmosphere filters out blue light, making it hard to determine Venus’s true color. Additionally, Venus hasn’t been studied as extensively as other planets.
Earth
Color: Blue mixed with green, yellow, white, and brown
Earth is a terrestrial planet with an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen. Blue light scatters more because of the oceans and atmosphere. Water absorbs red light, giving Earth its mostly blue appearance, often called The Blue Marble.
Beyond the dominant blue color, we see clouds and areas of vegetation, leading to different hues: green for vegetation, brown for mountains, white for ice formations, and yellow for deserts. Earth’s atmosphere stands out in The Solar System, creating a unique mix of colors.
Mars
Color: Red
Mars is one planet most people recognize by its color, partly because it’s often featured in science fiction movies. Being close to Earth with a thin atmosphere, it’s visible even without space exploration. Scientists identified its appearance even before the advent of space travel.
Earth shares many similarities with Mars, including weather patterns and surface materials. Mars is mostly reddish-brown due to iron oxide. White polar ice caps are also present at the poles.
Jupiter
Color: Brown and orange with white bands
Jupiter’s distinct brown, orange, and white bands are well-known. This gas giant has an outer layer of helium and hydrogen clouds, mixed with other elements, all moving at high speed.
White and orange colors come from chromophores, compounds that change hues under UV light from the sun. These chromophores contain hydrocarbons, phosphorus, or sulfur, depending on the colors that surface.
Special Note: Jupiter mainly features brown and orange hues, but 16 colors can appear: metallic silver, royal wine, metallic titanium grey, starlight blue, matte silver, starlight blue, midnight black, pristine white, mystic gold, matte blue, volcano red, titanium grey, autumn brown, walnut brown, sunlit ivory, and indi blue.
- Colors: Brown, orange, white bands
- Chromophores: Color compounds affected by UV light
- 16 visible colors including metallic silver, royal wine
Saturn
Color: Pale gold with red and white bands
Saturn’s banded appearance is similar to Jupiter’s, but due to its lower density, the bands are wider, nearer the equator, and less distinct.
Saturn’s composition is largely hydrogen and helium, forming deep red clouds. Ammonia clouds near the outer atmosphere edge mix with UV radiation to create a white hue. These combine with red to produce Saturn’s pale gold color.
- Pale gold with red and white bands
- Band appearance similar to Jupiter
- Made of hydrogen, helium, ammonia
Uranus
Color: Blue-Green
Uranus is an ice and gas planet composed of helium, hydrogen, water, hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. Its green color comes from methane, while the cyan hue appears due to near-infrared visible spectrum and band absorption.
Note that the only highly-detailed photographs of the planet were taken in 1986 during the mission of Voyager 2.
Neptune
Color: Azure Blue
Neptune resembles Uranus in appearance and composition but contains more ammonia and methane. This extra ammonia and methane, combined with less sunlight, gives Neptune its darker blue color.
Neptune’s weather patterns are more active and visible than Uranus’s. Notably, it features the Great Dark Spot, a visible storm. Similarly, Mars has a spot with a different color.
What Color Is The Sun?
Color: White
Many think the Sun is orange, yellow, or red. In reality, it comprises all colors, appearing as white. Photos from space vividly show the Sun’s true white color.
During sunrise or sunset, the Sun appears red, orange, or yellow. This happens because the short-wavelength colors (like violet, blue, and green) get scattered by the atmosphere. Only orange, yellow, and red colors can pass through.
Energy and light forms are parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The human eye can only detect a tiny portion called “visible light”. This can cause misunderstandings, like the color of the Sun. Many other light waves are invisible to us.
What Color Is Pluto?
Color: Varied
Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, was initially considered our solar system’s ninth planet. Although it’s no longer classified as a planet, we still know little about it due to its great distance from Earth.
New Horizon missions helped us see Pluto better. We found that Pluto has high contrast and its colors range from white to dark orange and charcoal black.