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Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- Albedo - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
a term referring to the reflecting property of surfaces. It is defined as the fraction of the total incident solar energy that an object, such as a planet or its satellite, reflects into space. The numerical value of an albedo is always between 1 and 0; for example, white surfaces have albedos close to 1, and black surfaces have albedos close to 0. The value of Earth’s albedo is 0.35. It is also possible to define other types of albedos, based on the geometry and other properties of an object.