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Q43 (IAS/2008) Science & Technology › Space & Defence Technology › Space astronomy missions Answer Verified

Consider the following statements: 1. The albedo of an object determines its visual brightness when viewed with reflected light. 2. The albedo of Mercury is much greater than the albedo of the Earth. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Result
Your answer: —  ·  Correct: A
Explanation

Statement 1 is correct: albedo is the fraction of incident sunlight a surface reflects, so it directly affects how bright an object appears in reflected light [1]. Statement 2 is incorrect: Mercury has a very low albedo (~0.1) compared with Earth’s overall albedo (~0.3–0.37), so Mercury is much darker and not “much greater” than Earth in reflectivity [2]. Therefore only statement 1 is true and statement 2 is false, making option 1 (1 only) the correct choice.

Sources

  1. [1] Physical Geography by PMF IAS, Manjunath Thamminidi, PMF IAS (1st ed.) > Chapter 21: Horizontal Distribution of Temperature > Albedo > p. 283
  2. [2] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/albedo.html
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