The planets have similar shades of blue and green.
Research conducted by Patrick Irwin, from the University of Oxford, confirmed that the idea of the colors of the planets Uranus and Neptune was wrong, as the two celestial bodies have similar shades of greenish blue.
Until now, Neptune was thought to have a darker blue color and Uranus to have a more green color. This idea was based on photographs of a space mission from the 1980s.
“Although known images of Uranus taken by Voyager 2 were published in a form closer to true color, the images of Neptune were, in fact, stretched and enhanced, and were therefore artificially tinted blue. Although the artificially saturated images were Well-known at the time among planetary scientists, the distinction had been lost over time. “By applying our model to the original data, we were able to reconstruct the most accurate representation to date of the color of both Neptune and Uranus,” Irwin said.
“They did something that I think everyone on Instagram has done at some point: touching up on colours. They only highlighted the blue to reveal properties that can be seen in Neptune’s atmosphere, which is why the image looks blue,” said team member Katherine Heymans of why. “Very much, but in reality, Neptune is very similar to Uranus.” For this perception…
At that time, image retouching and enhancement was something commonly done in astronomical research. “It would be foolish to look at an astronomical image and not think it's enhanced. They have to be, because that's how they're wired to be able to see things. It's not as if there's a conspiracy,” said Robert Massey, another participant in the study. To hide it from the public.
