New Scientist magazine, aka Killjoy magazine
|
NEWS IN BRIEF SPACE
Neptune isn’t as blue as we thought it was
Alex Wilkins
THE true colour of Neptune is a pale, greenish blue similar to that of Uranus, not the much deeper shade of blue most people picture.
In the 1980s, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft sent back photos showing that Uranus and Neptune were markedly different colours. Now, Patrick Irwin at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have reprocessed the images to show how the human eye might see the planets (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, doi.org/gtcc2d).
Voyager 2’s original photos were enhanced to highlight certain features, making Neptune appear more blue. This detail was included in the initial picture captions, but Neptune’s deep-blue shade later became enshrined as fact in the public consciousness, says Irwin. ■
|
Responses:
|