There are a bunch of values from various experiments that can be said to be a measured value of the rest mass or simply mass of the photon ..

A photon mass ranges from $\sim 10^{-7} \hspace{3pt} eV - \sim 10^{-27} \hspace {3pt} eV$. With such wide range of a mass we still have a firm founding on why photon can not be taken to be an extremely small mass rather it is taken to be a zero mass.

Even with the highest possible value measured it is by a factor $\sim 10^{-12}$ smaller than the mass of the electron — imagine a photon is associated with a hypothetical charge of the electron, for comparison sake of mass, we can give it the charge for free.

The photon is at-least by a factor $\sim 10^{-7}$ times smaller than the almost mass-less neutrino which is by a factor $\sim 10^{-5}$, smaller than the electron mass even if it were to have a charge of an electron, which it does not.

The *neutrino and photons are charge-less and mass-less particles but the photon is even by a factor $\sim 10^{-7}$ smaller in it’s mass than the neutrino.

*neutrino almost mass-less, compared to an electron.

The $\sim 10^{-7}\hspace{3pt} eV$ mass of the photon is still a value not to be included in the most precise mass of the photon. The most precise value of the photon is $\sim 10^{-18}\hspace{3pt} eV$, obtained from Plasma studies. The still smaller value of $\sim 10^{-27}\hspace{3pt} eV$ is studied from methods that involves the Galactic field.

The magnetic field of Sun disperses a very high energetic photon source of the GHz frequency range. Since the magnetic field of the Sun is about twice as big as that of Earth we would think that is causing the measurement to have a larger value of mass or energy.

In comparison the Earth’s mag-field measurement and the Jupiter’s mag-field measurement gives a value which is quite close to the best value of $\sim 10^{-18}\hspace{3pt} eV$. The Jupiter is the most powerful source of magnetic field in the solar system even bigger than Sun’s, it varies from 4 to 14 *Gauss.

*A Gauss as mag-field unit is 10,000 times smaller than the Tesla as a mag-field unit.

So the magnetic field of Sun is not playing a role. Actually all measurements of photon mass which are terrestrial in nature — that is involves planetary or solar fields, are quite close to the best value.

So the only anomaly in the best value of $\sim 10^{-18}\hspace{3pt} eV$ are $\sim 10^{-27}\hspace{3pt} eV$ — Galactic field with or without Higgs mass hypothesis, or $\sim 10^{-7}\hspace{3pt} eV$ — Dispersion by Sun of very high frequency radio-waves.

This deviation is understandable. The measurements in the ~100 Hz light or photon sources are close to the best value of $\sim 10^{-18}\hspace{3pt} eV$. But the $10^{9}\hspace{3pt} Hz$ radio-waves test gives an imprecise mass or energy value.

The Galactic field is perhaps off from any powerful interference hence gives a very small value of $10^{-27}\hspace{3pt} eV$ — with Higgs mass assumption: $10^{-26}\hspace{3pt} eV$. The dispersion by GHz radiation involves a very small time window in the measurement since frequency is inversely proportional to time.

GHz makes the time window really small. For such a sensitive time measurement one must make a correspondingly larger error on energy therefore mass. That is a show-up of uncertainty principle of energy-time. So we see a large energy or mass for the photon of $10^{-7}\hspace{3pt} eV$.

For all known cases we say that photon is mass-less. It is charge less to the order $10^{-35}$ of electron charge.