Earth returns about a third of the light that falls on it; fresh snow returns most of it. These worlds return a twentieth. They are giant planets orbiting so close to their stars that clouds cannot form — with nothing to scatter light back, they are among the least reflective objects known, darker than charcoal.
How picked
Picked automatically from the current data: the lowest reflected brightness (CIE luminance Y) in the catalogue, one per star system.
Honesty
Every swatch on this site is brightened to a standard display brightness so the hue is visible at all — so these do not look as dark as they are. The percentage on each stop is what actually comes back.
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PHASE —
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4.5 % reflected
FU Tauri b
FU Tauri · 2,838 K · M7.25Modelled
Reflects only 4.5 % of the light that reaches it: a 12.2 R⊕ world at 2,375 K, where its 2,838 K red-dwarf sun puts out almost nothing except red and infrared light, so the colour owes more to the star than to the planet.
Reflects only 5.5 % of the light that reaches it: a 2.3 R⊕ world at 2,100 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.7 % of the light that reaches it: an 11.6 R⊕ world at 2,198 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.7 % of the light that reaches it: a 13.0 R⊕ world at 2,470 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.7 % of the light that reaches it: a 12.4 R⊕ world at 2,361 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.8 % of the light that reaches it: a 13.9 R⊕ world at 2,429 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.8 % of the light that reaches it: a 16.5 R⊕ world at 2,300 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.9 % of the light that reaches it: a 15.1 R⊕ world at 3,646 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.9 % of the light that reaches it: a 15.9 R⊕ world at 2,453 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
Reflects only 5.9 % of the light that reaches it: a 13.7 R⊕ world at 2,290 K, where it is too hot for clouds to survive, so almost nothing comes back; the little that does is blue light scattered off bare hydrogen, the way our own sky is blue.
⚠ ABOUT THIS SWATCHThis colour falls outside the range a screen can display — the swatch is the closest your screen can get.
HOW THESE 10 WERE PICKED
Picked automatically from the current data: the lowest reflected brightness (CIE luminance Y) in the catalogue, one per star system.