Our ideas of the colours of the planets Neptune and Uranus have been wrong, research led by UK astronomers reveals.
It has emerged that the earlier images of Neptune had been enhanced to show details of the planet’s atmosphere, which altered its true colour.
“They did something that I think everyone on Instagram will have done at some time in their life, they tweaked the colours,” Prof Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a University of Edinburgh astrophysics professor, told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
Astronomers have long known that most modern images of the two planets do not accurately reflect their true colours, according to Prof Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford, who led the research.
Prof Irwin and his team processed the original data to produce what is claimed to be ‘‘the most accurate representation yet’’ of the colour of both Neptune and Uranus.
The analysis revealed that Uranus and Neptune are a similar shade of greenish blue, although researchers found a slight difference.
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Our ideas of the colours of the planets Neptune and Uranus have been wrong, research led by UK astronomers reveals.
It has emerged that the earlier images of Neptune had been enhanced to show details of the planet’s atmosphere, which altered its true colour.
“They did something that I think everyone on Instagram will have done at some time in their life, they tweaked the colours,” Prof Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a University of Edinburgh astrophysics professor, told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
Astronomers have long known that most modern images of the two planets do not accurately reflect their true colours, according to Prof Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford, who led the research.
Prof Irwin and his team processed the original data to produce what is claimed to be ‘‘the most accurate representation yet’’ of the colour of both Neptune and Uranus.
The analysis revealed that Uranus and Neptune are a similar shade of greenish blue, although researchers found a slight difference.
The original article contains 545 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!