Our galaxy's best and brightest

Heidi, Texas — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:59:48 GMT

That's really neat! I have always been a little confused with all this computer generated color, which has always made me wonder if there is any color in space. Is there really color in space? Is every thing just black and light? I know that from the shuttle or space station our wonderful planet is a treasure chest of blues, what about everything else?

I run a blog ( http://www.bloopfish.com ) and alot of young children including my own are always asking too. So maybe if you don't answer my question here, maybe in the future you can write about it.

Thank you!

Our galaxy's best and brightest

asdf — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:05:04 GMT

holy crap! check out the high-res image, to think that those billions of stars are only in our own galaxy, and to think that there are billions of countless galaxies, ... holy crap!

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Alan Boyle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:23:20 GMT

Dear Heidi: There really is color in space, or at least things in space are colored, including the glowing gas you would see in nebulae. However, particularly with telescopes that "see" in wavelengths other than visible light, the colors are actually based on the intensity as seen by different filters that don't reflect what the eye would see.

Here's what the Spitzer team has to say about the color coding in the Peony images:

"This is a three-color composite showing infrared observations from two Spitzer instruments. Blue represents 3.6-micron light and green shows light of 8 microns, both captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Red is 24-micron light detected by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer."

So, yes, there are colors in space ... more colors than we can see. In order for scientists to see and understand the structure of celestial objects, they translate the colors that can't be seen by the human eye into colors that we can see. That's why Spitzer often delivers "false color" images.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

V. Steele — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:42:10 GMT

Truly angeliferous! "To infinity and beyond!"

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Larry Nathanson, Chula Vista, CA — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:20:04 GMT

How can anybody think for one moment that God does not exist.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Mark, Vancouver, WA — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:30:12 GMT

Heidi, there is lots of color in space! You can easily see it for yourself in the night sky. Take a look at Sirius -- it shines a brilliant blue-white with flickers of red. Compare with Vega which is blue, then look at Betelgeuse and Antares, which are clearly red.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Rob v. — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:03:36 GMT

Hi Heidi,
The concept of "color" and what humans and other animals see is facinating.

Humans see some colors better than other colors; from deep violet to deep red we see some better than other.

Studies find that animals see yet other colors better (or worse) than humans.

Bees for example see colors deep into the ultra-violet (better to see those nectar producing flowers during the day) and rabbits deeper than humans into the infra-red.(Better to see at night and in the dusk.)

Some humans are "color blind" and cannot see greens at all but only see brown instead. Some animals as well. (Dogs and cats see in grey-scales.)

I work in an industry that is all about producing light efficiently for use by humans. (The solid-state lighting industry.) The understanding of the nature of light keeps a whole bunch of people VERY busily employed!

A very thought provoking question. Take care & keep the curiosity alive and well! Above all have fun with it all. Sincerely,

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Chuck Sweet — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:43:40 GMT

I am wondering about the other stars shown in the inset, the larger light yellow ones with a smaller, brighter yellow at about a 5 o'clock position just offset from the larger one. I counted 8 of these. Do you have an explaination for those?? Just wondering.
Also, this is a GORGEOUS pic of the Peony Nebula, utterly fantastic.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Andy La Plata, MD — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:32:04 GMT

This sentence, in particular, caught my eye: "When this star blows up, it will evaporate any planets orbiting stars in the vicinity." I was thinking it might prove interesting (if the technology exists) to look at stars within supernova remnants to see if any planets can be located. If none exist close in, then at what distance do they reappear? We already know extrasolar planets exist. Now let's see what can happen to them under less than ideal circumstances!

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Ysmael, Jacksonville, FL — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:30:00 GMT

When one says of far away stars "shrouded in dust and gas", are these particles of dusts and gases the same size as what we know here on earth? Or are they as big as asteroids, meteors, moons or even planets?

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:41:17 GMT

Alan Boyle..do you mean that assigned colours are just a guess or do you mean if our eyes were capable of seeing all wavelengths (ie. you could selectively tune in), is that what we would see?

It's always a wonderous thing to see into the galaxy like this.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Julian, Sydney, Australia — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:27:33 GMT

There sure is a lot of color. It is awesome. It will blow your mind.

http://hubblesite.org

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Megan, Michigan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:33:03 GMT

Wow, thats amazing. Just to think how many stars are out there. I can't even begin to imagine anything of that size. Alan, that is really interesting about the colors in space. I never knew there were more colors in space than what the human eye can see.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Bob Long Island NY — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:09:12 GMT

Heidi,
There is color in space, as long as you define it within the eye's capabilities. What you see above is false color, meaning wavelengths that we can't see are represented by wavelengths we can (called color). We generally don't refer to electromagnetic radiation that is outside our red to blue range as color. Wikipedia has a very good description (just read the lighter stuff, skip the heavy technical stuff):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space

As for true color images of space objects, there is color. When we look through a small telescope we see black and white because our eyes do not have the sensitivity to pick up the colors (especially the reds). Digital and film cameras don't have that problem because they take long exposures by keeping the shutter open and 'burning in' the image. That was my first disappointment when I bought a small telescope "why can't I see the colors as they are in the picture in the magazine". In much larger scopes (>12"), you start to get hints of green, blues and reds, but only from the brightest of objects. If you looked out the window of a spaceship sitting just outside of one of these nebulas, I suspect you would see color, but not as bright as those captures by cameras.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Our galaxy's best and brightest

S.B. Stein E.B. NJ — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:16:58 GMT

Ah, what colors. Now if only I had a starship to see it in-person. How far away are these images?

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Steve Ontari, Ca — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:16:53 GMT

"There are more stars in the known universe than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of all our world."

Carl Sagen

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:28:16 GMT

Thomas Ashby,
The false color is as much like assigning a sound tone as a color. Obviously, sound wouldn't work for the whole picture, but on a pixel by pixel basis it's the same thing. The colors used in false color are totally unrelated to the colors we see, they can be picked at random. It's kind of like colorizing a b/w picture without standardizing the colors. (i.e., purple skin, green hair, yellow sky) The closest we could come to making false color mean anything would be to compress the em spectrum into the visible band. Gamma rays would be violet, radio waves would be red, the full range of light visible to us would be a shade of green. It might be interesting because we'd be able to "see" the entire em spectrum but it would be hard to interperet and might not be nearly as beautiful as some of the pictures they put out by choosing complimentary colors that have adequate contrast.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:34:57 GMT

Second thought,
You could do that compression thing on just a band of wavelengths. So you could represent the band of frequencies soon to not be used for TV through Roy G. Biv or just what we see as shades of yellow expanded so they cover the whole visual range. In most of the false color images, though, they're compiling disparate frequencies, so you couldn't maintain that kind of seamlesness.

Our galaxy's best and brightest

Ian, Barbados — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:25:53 GMT

Man, that photo is super stunning. Its irregular shapes and images make it difficult to really comprehend was really going on. But its super vast size and depth make for a mind-boggling assessment.

I kept asking myself, what else is out there that we have not yet seen ?

The photo is really astonishing