The color of the universe
What would one see if the rainbow of lights that comprise the visible universe were mixed together into one color? Astronomers think something slightly greener than pale turquoise.

For the full article, go to:
True color of the cosmos revealed, pale green (cnn)
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/01/10/color.cosmos/index.html

Here's the problem that I found with their color.
They purposely choose a funky retro green over the more normal natural dark green. The dark green would be more accurate. But they opted for the light funky green, because it would garner more publicity than the normal dark green. If they went with dark green, then people would be like, "oh yeah, dark green, it's natural. That makes sense that would be the normal color of the universe." But they instead with the funky green. So people think that it's so ironic that the whole universe is so hip and cool.

They could have chosen any range of luminosity (from bright to dark). One would think they would choose the AVERAGE range of lumniosity, since they are dealing with averages here. That would have given them a quite normal "natural" green. But they opted for the light funky green for greater publicity.

Publicity Color
(what they say it is,
using full luminosity)
Real Color
(at average luminosity)
hex value: A1E8CD
hex value: 456357
Hip funky color
Normal looking natural
Comes from the png image file at the official research site
Takes the exact rgb values of 26.9, 38.8, 34.2 (from their official research site)

And converts them to the hex values 456357*.

This only takes into consideration the hue and saturation, so the luminosity here is average.


you'd think they would choose the average, the middle.


Background on this story.

News stories
• True color of the cosmos revealed, pale green (cnn)
• Scientists Say Green Dominates Stars (yahoo)
• Scientist calls color of universe 'cosmic spectrum green' (Nando Times)
• And the Color of the Universe Is (NPR)
• Color of the universe (spaceflight now)

 The official research
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/

Discussion boards
http://www.geeklife.com/news/gln2657.asp
http://slashdot.org/science/02/01/10/2215253.shtml

* an interesting note.
The hex value for the real color is an interesting number (456357).
When viewed on a normal keypad that has 1-9 in rows of three (like on a phone) the numbers spell out in rows. Try it on your phone to see what I mean!
 Email me with any comments or anything that you find is inaccurate at: universecolor@spudart.org

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