Why do planets get their color by reflecting? (Mercury)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guillermo H
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Guillermo H

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I am working on a project for observations vs. Inference. I need to find an inference to why it is grey.
 
We know that Mercury appears grey because it absorbs
certain wavelengths of light and reflects others.
From the colors absorbed and reflected, we can infer
its composition.
 
The planets are visible because they reflect sunlight.
The composition of the surface reflecting that sunlight is what causes the colours.

Anything that doesn't emit its own light is visible simply because it reflects light. The colour we see in the object is the result of the material and therefore the wavelengths of light it reflects most strongly.
Something that appears blue to our eyes is blue because it reflects more of the blue wavelengths of light.

Mercury appears grey because the rocks that make up Mercury's surface are thought to be mostly basalts and silicates (similar to the moon).
 
They look a certain color because of their atmosphere. We only see the atmospherical surface of Mercury, and because we've never landed on it, we don't know what the land surface is. Same with the other planets, except for the gas giants, because they're gas and have no true surface color (except for the gas).

Mercury is gray because of the high amounts of molecular oxygen and sodium in it's atmosphere.
 
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