Mars is known as the Red Planet because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or rust, causing the soil and atmosphere to look red.
Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead. The surface is a rusty color and it's peppered with intensely crunched mountains and thousands of large volcanoes. Scientists think it's possible some volcanoes are still active.
Mars is known as the Red Planet. It is red because the soil looks like rusty iron.
The red planet Mars, named for the Roman god of war, has long been an omen in the night sky. And in its own way, the planet's rusty red surface tells a story of destruction.
When Mars and Earth are close to each other, Mars appears very bright in our sky. It is also easier to see with telescopes or the naked eye. The Red Planet comes close enough for exceptional viewing only once or twice every 15 or 17 years.
When you see Mars in the night sky, it definitely has a reddish tint to it. People have been noticing that for a long time: even the ancient Egyptians called Mars 'The Red One.
A Layer of Dust
Wind eroded these surface rocks and soil, and ancient volcanos blew out the iron, spreading it all over the planet. When this happened, the iron within the dust reacted with oxygen, producing a red rust color. So, Mars is red because it has a layer of rusty dust covering its entire surface!
Named GJ 504b, the planet is made of pink gas. It's similar to Jupiter, a giant gas planet in our own solar system. But GJ 504b is four times more massive. At 460°F, it's the temperature of a hot oven, and it's the planet's intense heat that causes it to glow.
A purple planet! Actually, the color suggestion is just speculation based on the planet's expected chemical composition. The planet, called WASP-104b, orbits 4 million km from its yellow dwarf parent star every 1.75 days.
Without a working dynamo and a protective magnetic field, most of Mars's water was blasted from its atmosphere by solar radiation long ago, leaving us with a very dead world.
Mars may look hot, but don't let its color fool you -- Mars is actually pretty cold! In orbit, Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the Sun than Earth. That means it gets a lot less light and heat to keep it warm. Mars also has a hard time holding onto the heat it does get.
Who knew that the red planet also glows green? Scientists in a study announced the first-ever discovery of a green glow in the atmosphere of Mars. It's also the first time such a glow has been spotted anywhere other than Earth.
Thanks to Venus Express, Taylor now describes Venus as “Earth's twin, but separated at birth.”
Neptune: The Blue Planet.
Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus' cloud tops.
Alt text: Pluto is shown in a rainbow of colors that distinguish the different regions on the planet. The left side of the planet is mostly blue-green with purple swirls, while the right side ranges from a vibrant yellow-green at the top to a reddish orange toward the bottom.
Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the Universe, in addition to the hottest. The temperature of this dark and balmy planet was taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
HD 189733b, a planet located 63 light years away, is a deep cobalt blue, a darker blue than Earth's oceans.
It's only about three million miles from its parent star — much closer than Mercury is to the Sun. And its night side may sizzle at almost 3,000 degrees. Yet the planet appears to be the darkest yet seen — darker than charcoal. TrES-2b is named for the project that discovered it — the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey.
NASA has taken a closer look at 55 Cancri e, an exoplanet that earned the nickname "diamond planet" due to research that suggests it has a carbon-rich composition.
Mercury's abnormally dark coloring has puzzled scientists for years — but a new study using NASA data has revealed the origins of the planet's unique look. Patches of a carbon-rich material called graphite — the same stuff that's in a pencil — cover Mercury's surface, tinting it dark gray.
Saturn officially has 63 moons, with another 20 currently awaiting confirmation of their discovery and subsequent naming by the International Astronomical Union. The ringed planet has more moons than any other planet in the solar system.
Uranus holds the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in the Solar System: a very chilly -224℃. The temperature on Neptune is still very cold, of course – usually around -214℃ – but Uranus beats that. The reason why Uranus is so cold is nothing to do with its distance from the Sun.
Saturn is also a giant gas planet with an outer atmosphere that is mostly hydrogen and helium. Its atmosphere has traces of ammonia, phosphine, water vapor, and hydrocarbons giving it a yellowish-brown color.