What is an albedo?

Maybe you have already heard that there are planets, moons and othere object in the solar system that have a different albedo.

But what this term “albedo” really means?

The albedo simply means reflectivity. The albedo is always defined as a number between 0 and 1. Typically when there is albedo defined as 0, this means that the reflectivity of the surface of the planet is zero and the planet is absorbing the all sunlight. When the albedo is 1, this means that the planet reflects all the sunlight that is hitting this planet. This is just theory, because the typical planet (or any other planetary object or moon, etc) has the albedo between 0 and 1.

The albedo is important physical definition of the planet (or other object in the Solar system). It is simply defining the reflectivity of the surface abd with this we can say a lot when studying the surface. We can define other physical characteristics and natural conditions.

Now you should understand what albedo is. Isn’t this fascinating?

~Jozef

Featured image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Cassini mission (the last photo of Saturn).