# What color is Venus? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812 "2020-04-01T16:22:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/1 "2020-04-01T16:22:03Z")
[This page here](https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/april-stargazing-planetary-quarantine) says “April’s night skies bring brightness to dark times. At dusk, Venus will burn with stunning intensity (at magnitude -4.5) in the western sky. Even with the unaided eye, the planet’s characteristic sulfurous yellow hue will be easy to see.” My colour perception isn’t the best, but I always thought that Venus was silvery-white?? ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/2 "2020-04-01T16:43:38Z")
I think it depends on the angle formed by the sun, Venus, and the Earth. Sometimes it’s silver, sometimes it’s a little bit yellow. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/3 "2020-04-01T17:36:56Z")
It just looks white to me. Maybe in just the right conditions its yellowy color is more apparent. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/4 "2020-04-01T18:14:49Z")
It’s never looked yellowish to me, either. The fact that the clouds are sulfuric acid doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they’re clouds. Cloudlike structures of any material are going to look white. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/5 "2020-04-01T18:35:04Z")
[Planetary.org (Emily Lakdawalla): “Venus looks more boring than you think it does”](https://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2009/2105.html) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/6 "2020-04-02T05:02:38Z")
When I saw it on June 8, 2004, it was black. See my avatar. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/8 "2020-04-02T12:24:06Z")
It always looks bright white to me. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/9 "2020-04-02T17:47:45Z")
Ditto. For me, Saturn always had a slightly yellow cast much more than Venus ever did. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/10 "2020-04-02T22:13:45Z")
I have heard that as human evolved under a yellow sun, we then to perceive slight yellowish tint in bright objects as white so that the Sun, Venus and most lightbulbs are translated in our brain so we think they’re white. Not sure how true that is but I do know that our perception of an object’s color depends on a lot more than how wavelengths are absorbed by our cones. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/11 "2020-04-02T22:35:46Z")
> [@K364](#): > > [This page here](https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/april-stargazing-planetary-quarantine) says “April’s night skies bring brightness to dark times. At dusk, Venus will burn with stunning intensity (at magnitude -4.5) in the western sky. Even with the unaided eye, the planet’s characteristic sulfurous yellow hue will be easy to see.” > > My colour perception isn’t the best, but I always thought that Venus was silvery-white?? Yeah, since when does the… _checks notes_… Sierra Club know anything about the natural world? I think the brain sees what it expects to see and disregards the rest… dah dah dah… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/12 "2020-04-02T22:38:20Z")
Yeah, white to me as well. Maybe pearly white, at best, but definitely not yellowish. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/13 "2020-04-03T01:19:09Z")
Yellowish is for Jupiter and Saturn, reddish for Mars. Venus is always silvery white, unles it’s close enough to the horizon to get filtered. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/14 "2020-04-03T01:43:16Z")
[Universe Today has a remarkably low-bullshit answer](https://www.universetoday.com/46436/what-color-is-venus/) to the question posed and the question I thought was posed: > [@](#): > > If you could actually fly out to Venus and look at it with your own eyes, you wouldn’t see much more than a bright white-yellowish ball with no features. You wouldn’t actually be able to see any of the cloud features that you can see in photographs of Venus. That’s because those photos are taken using different wavelengths of light, where differences in the cloud layers are visible. > > [snip] > > If you could get down beneath the cloud tops of Venus, you wouldn’t be able to see much either. That’s because the clouds are so thick that most of the light from the Sun is blocked before it reaches the surface. You would see a dim landscape, like you might see at twilight. The surface of the planet is littered with brownish-red volcanic rocks. The bright red color you see in the Soviet Venera images of Venus have been brightened to show more surface detail. > > [snip] > > So, what color is Venus? Yellowish-white. Also, space agencies have a real allergy to true-color imagery. You’d think a roll of Kodachrome caused them to flunk out of high school or something. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/15 "2020-04-03T05:39:28Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > [Universe Today has a remarkably low-bullshit answer](https://www.universetoday.com/46436/what-color-is-venus/) to the question posed and the question I thought was posed:Also, space agencies have a real allergy to true-color imagery. You’d think a roll of Kodachrome caused them to flunk out of high school or something. [This page](https://owlcation.com/stem/True-Color-Photos-of-All-the-Planets) may be of interest then. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/16 "2020-04-03T09:27:39Z")
To me, she mostly appears to be [various shades of light brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus). ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/17 "2020-04-03T09:31:43Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I have heard that as human evolved under a yellow sun, we then to perceive slight yellowish tint in bright objects as white so that the Sun, Venus and most lightbulbs are translated in our brain so we think they’re white. “The Sun is in fact white, and its spectrum peaks in blue and green light, but it can often appear yellow, orange or red through Earth’s atmosphere due to atmospheric Rayleigh scattering, especially at sunrise and sunset.” > **[Yellow dwarf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dwarf)** > > Yellow dwarf or Yellow Dwarf may refer to: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/18 "2020-04-03T13:47:46Z")
Well, it depends on what you’re comparing it to. Compared to Vega (which is used as the astronomical standard of a “white” star), Sol is slightly yellowish. But an Earthbound photographer will use natural sunlight as the defining standard of “white light”, and describe Vega as slightly bluish by comparison. And space agencies usually don’t use true-color imagery, because true color is of no particular interest to them. You use whatever filters you think will be useful for getting the information you want. If there’s some particular spectral line that you think might be of interest, you use a filter for that spectral line. If there’s some sort of feature that shows up in the difference between two filters, you optimize those filters to accentuate that feature. Usually, there’s some way that you can approximately map those filters to R, G, and B, to composite them together to approximate true color, and so that’s what they do for public outreach. It won’t be completely accurate, but it’ll still make pretty pictures, which is mostly good enough for public outreach purposes. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-venus/850812/19 "2020-04-03T14:01:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But an Earthbound photographer will use natural sunlight as the defining standard of “white light”, and describe Vega as slightly bluish by comparison. Direct sunlight by itself is yellowish though. Illumination by direct sunlight + blue sky add up to neutral white. I think that’s why we tend to think of the Sun as yellow. You can think of it as being contrasted by the blue sky, or that some of the blue light is removed from direct sunlight and becomes diffuse sky.