Our ideas about the colors of the planets Neptune and Uranus appear to be incorrect. Images from a space mission in the 1980s suggested that Neptune was a rich blue color and Uranus was pale green-blue. But those earlier photos of Neptune had been digitally edited, according to research by British astronomers. Actually, the two frost giants are both pretty much the same shade of teal.
Previous images of Neptune had been enhanced to show details of the planet’s atmosphere, changing the planet’s true color. “They did something that everyone on Instagram has done, they changed the colors,” concluded Professor Catherine Heymans, professor of astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, on Friday. BBC Radio 4 Today.
“They highlighted the blue to show the features you can see in Neptune’s atmosphere. And that’s why the image looks very blue. But in reality, Neptune is quite similar to Uranus.”
Astronomers have long known that most images of the two planets do not accurately reflect their true colors, says Professor Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford, who led the research. The earlier photos were taken by the Voyager 2 space probe, which was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets of our solar system.
“While the artificially saturated color was known to planetary scientists at the time – and the images were released with captions explaining it – that distinction has been lost over time.” Their research has been published in the scientific monthly magazine Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
No conspiracy
With the help of photos from new Voyager missions, the Hubble telescope and the James Webb telescope, the Oxford researchers were now able to show the true color of Neptune. The main difference is that Neptune has a slight hint of extra blue, which the researchers believe is due to a thinner haze covering that planet. Uranus, by the way, appears slightly greener during summer and winter, when one of its poles faces the sun. But in spring and autumn, when the sun is above the equator, it has a bluer hue.
And no, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society Robert Massey tells the BBC, there is no conspiracy to fool the public for years. According to him, editing astronomical photos is the most normal procedure. “You would be crazy to look at an astronomical image and not think it has been enhanced. That has to be the case, because that is how they are processed to be able to see things.”
Uranus and Neptune are the two planets farthest from the sun. Uranus is on average 2.9 billion kilometers from the sun, Neptune is 4.5 billion kilometers.
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