The planets are individual worlds which reveal signs of their histories on their surfaces and in their rocks and ices. Most of the Solar System is fairly narrow in color range with yellow-brown grays of varying brightness and saturation predominating. The exceptions, such as the orange planet Mars, the sulfurous surface of Io or the blue oceans of Earth have been the focus of my efforts to obtain some color information to assist my portrayals of these worlds .

  An interesting page on spectra of Solar System objects can be seen on the the planetary spectroscopy page of Maurice Gavin.

  More true color planetary images can be seen here

 Don Mitchell has some excellent images of the globe and surface of Venus on his site.

  Some of the albedo numbers are referenced from Calvin J. Hamiltons 'Views Of the Solar System' site.

  Since Mars is a fairly colorful world with a long observational history I have dedicated a couple pages to the 'Red Planet'. The true color of Mars is a subject a variety of people interested in the planet are attentive to, and with upcoming missions being prepared the prospects for new information on this topic are bright. I eagerly await the detailed images Hubble will undoubtedly obtain of Mars this August.

 The planets and their moons are bright and dark, colorful and dull. Variations of color and brightness distinguish many of the bodies of the Solar System, and a few stand out as unique. The brightness, or percentage of the light reflected from a world (or sample thereof) is expressed as its 'albedo'. In the images I have tried to correctly color balance the image and present plausible contrast levels. No effort has been made to brighten or darken any of the images to maintain absolute brightness with any of the others..

The Moon (left) is overall quite dark, with an average albedo of about 0.12. The dark maria tends to be a bit 'bluer' than the cratered highlands, at some 7-10 per cent reflectivity. Local noticeably red and blue regions exist both on maria and highland surfaces.. The highlands reflects about 20-25 percent or so, with very fresh impact craters strewn with rocks and molten glass as bright as 40 to 50 percent. (The background gray on this page is set at 50 percent.) These figures are extrapolated from those in Apollo preliminary science reports.

  Mercury (right) is probably similar in albedo and color to the Moon, although perhaps with less contrast between the lighter and darker regions. Both the Moon and Mercury are rendered images using texture maps I have fashioned from available spacecraft photography.

The cloud tops of Venus (not shown) are brilliant white, with a high albedo of 76 percent. Only the faintest darker tan cloud detail exists, which is brought out well in ultraviolet images.

  Earth is a complex world to measure the brightness of, with a calculated average albedo of 0.37. Most of the planet is under an ocean reflecting only about 3.5 per cent of the sunlight neglecting specular reflection. Clouds reflect about 78 percent of the light, and about 50 percent of the surface is covered by clouds at a given time, biased toward the poles. Land areas range from a dark 4.3 percent for forests and about 7 percent for vegetation rich ground such as fields to 13 percent for arid rocky regions.Only the brighter and higher altitude regions are largely free of the blue overlay of the atmosphere.Some of these figures are from measurements quoted in 'Visual Illusions' by M. Luckiesh, Dover Publications Inc. 1965.

This rendering used full disk weather satellite images merged to capture a moment in time of the Earth, enhanced and colored to approach the real appearance.

  Mars has long been known to be divided between light and dark regions. The darkest areas are mostly dark neutral gray basaltic rock. The brighter 'desert' regions are a lighter yellow orange brown. Mars is rather dark, its albedo an average of 0.16. The darker regions approach the color and brightness of the Lunar highlands, with the widespread dust lighter than the average albedo. This rendering of Mars uses a new texture map derived from Mars Global Surveyor images and includes an attempt at factoring in the dusty haze. Dedicated pages deal with the color of Mars in detail.

Jupiter has several narrow belts of distinct colors as well as reddish oval shaped stable cyclonic weather zones such as the 'Great Red Spot'. The overall albedo of the planet is 0.52. The colors shown in the strips are of the wider alternating belts and zones extending from either side of the often white equatorial zone.

This is a Voyager image assembled from raw data and color balanced to approximate the colors and contrast of the planet.

Io, the large volcanic satellite of Jupiter, was first shown to the world in images transmitted from the Voyager spacecraft. Unfortunately their cameras had no red filters and color pictures often had to be extrapolated substituting orange for red and violet for blue.. In the case of Io this led to a garish 'pizza' appearance with many reproductions of the released images further wandering toward the red until Io looked like tomato soup! Io is very bright, and largely a pale yellow with gray green to orange regions. Galileo has greatly refined the color information from Io. The albedo Io, (left, below) is a bright 0.6. That of Europa is 0.64. Ganymede 0.42, and dark Callisto (right) 0.2.

 Saturn is a more subdued appearing world, an albedo of 0.47 making it only slightly darker than Jupiter. The rings are actually more of a brown gray color than we see them from Earth, as we are always nearly 'in line' with the Sun and thus generally see the 'zero phase' region with no shadows and possible back scattering, all tending to bring a familiar yet atypical white ringed Saturn to our view. The Voyager spacecraft approached from a different angle than our view and viewed the sunlit rings as they generally appear. The Hubble (left) and Voyager (right) images show the ring brightness difference as well as long term changes in the cloud bands. The color differences in the planet are probably not real but caused by Voyagers available color filters. To the lower left is a Voyager 1 image showing the dark, shaded side if the thin flat rings around a crescent Saturn. The Hubble image is probably a better color match, allowing for contrast enhancements. A very nice 'Hubble Heritage' natural color Saturn image with realistic contrast can be seen here.

Titan, the large moon of Saturn, is covered with clouds which prevents us from seeing the surface. The color of these clouds is a pale subdued tan with an albedo of 0.21. I have rebalanced the color of this Hubble image.

Uranus (left) is a pale sky blue gray, with an albedo averaging 0.5. Historical observations suggest a lighter equatorial zone bordered by darker belts, but the Hubble telescope should soon be able to shed light on this as the planet continues to slowly turn from the polar orientation of the Voyager era.

  Neptune (right) is bluer than Uranus and has more pronounced but apparently unstable cloud details. At this distance from the Sun, 30 times that of Earth, color estimates begin to be compromised by the dimness of the light affecting human color vision. The albedo of Neptune is about 0.41.

Pluto (left) seems to have intriguing surface details, with pronounced contrast between white and yellow brown regions. These regional contrasts have been largely detected by measurements of light changes as Pluto was eclipsed by its large satellite Charon in the late 1980's. The albedo of Pluto ranges from 0.49 to 0.66, while darker more neutral colored Charon averages about 0.37.

  I have made a template to provide some attempt at 'true color' planetary color patches. They are revised and expanded versions of color patches I prepared after seeing the Planetary color article in the June 1985 Sky and telescope by Andy Young. I corresponded with the author who kindly sent me color chips which I used as a guide for my own efforts. He is of course not responsible for any errors made here. These are approximate average values but should be 'within the ballpark'. Unless indicated all the colors aim towards a 'naked eye impression' of the color types seen under noontime sunlight conditions or the colors of cloud tops under similar lighting conditions. The color sample should be printed on a high quality printer and ideally viewed in diffused sunlight. I will revise my color samples as new information becomes available. Some suggestion of the variation in surface color is indicated on the Moon (reddish and bluish maria lava flows) and Mars (lighter region variations and dark region with a dust coating and the darkest dust free regions).

Below is my attempt at a set of color reference strips for some of the planets.

Some useful planetary map sites are mentioned on my 'links' page. Most of these have opinions and tips regarding the realistic portrayal of the planets. One of these, run by Bjorn Jonsson, includes some excellent planetary color material.