Jupiter also has some complex hydrocarbons in it's upper atmosphere due to chemistry, intense lightning and atmospheric mixing. It's lighter bands are colder, where ice reflection is the primary factor in it's color. The darker bands are warmer, generally circulating upwards from deeper in the planet, like Hadley cells on Earth, driven in part by Jupiter's fast rotation and strong Coriolis effect and significant internal heat. Jupiter's bands can be color-differentiated by where there is abundant ice high in it's atmosphere and where there is more gas. Saturn is a little too warm for Methane ice, but it has ammonia ice giving it a lighter color and other gases in it's upper atmosphere giving it some darker yellow and orange colors. Uranus and Neptune's methane ice give them their blue/green and more pure blue colors. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are cold enough that mostly their color is defined by ice, which tends to be more reflective, giving them lighter and generally considered "prettier" colors. Upper-atmosphere temperature is also very important. (Neptune gets it's blue color from a combination of it's hydrogen and helium and trace amounts of Methane ice). Hydrogen and Helium are both highly transparent to visible light but bluish when thick enough. There's no such thing as a transparent gas giant planet, with an earth like atmosphere that you can see through. Any gas will reflect and diffract some sunlight and gas giants have atmospheres thousands of miles thick. Using visible light only, many gases are largely transparent, but that doesn't mean they're colorless. Color is different under a blue star compared to a red dwarf, so there's 2 colors to consider, color under a white light and color under the planet's star.Īll that said, color's still interesting and fun and it tells us something. See here.Īlso, many photos that we see of planets are doctored to make the variations stand out more visibly, and I think it's great that NASA does this.Īnd three, the planet's star can affect it's color. NASA brings a variety of cameras on their missions, Infra Red, Radio, UV as well as visible light. We see, only a narrow band of the spectrum. They change some, but gas giant color has more to do with temperature. The ingredients don't change all that much. It's not the ingredients as much as the temperature. Also, a couple points are in order.įirst, you're thinking about gas giant color is wrong. It's a more complicated question than it appears.
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