Studying the albedos of the planets and moons of the Solar System dates back at least a century. Of particular interest is the relationship between the albedo measured at superior conjunction, known as the ``geometric albedo, and the albedo considered over all orbital phase angles, known as the ``spherical albedo. Determining the relationship between the geometric and spherical albedos usually involves complex numerical calculations and closed-form solutions are restricted to simple reflection laws. Here we report the discovery of closed-form solutions for the geometric albedo and integral phase function, which apply to any law of reflection that only depends on the scattering angle. The shape of a reflected light phase curve, quantified by the integral phase function, and the secondary eclipse depth, quantified by the geometric albedo, may now be self-consistently inverted to retrieve globally averaged physical parameters. Fully Bayesian phase curve
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