Gorgeous cotton candy clouds show how Hubble processes space images
If you're curious about how Hubble produces such vivid and colorful images and whether the colors are real or not, it helps to understand how telescope cameras work. Unlike the camera on your phone, for example, Hubble doesn't just point at an object and snap an image. Instead, its instruments like the Wide Field Camera 3, which produced this image, take multiple observations of the same object using different filters.
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Each filter restricts the light being observed to just particular wavelengths. In this case, five different filters were used, covering wavelengths that the human eye can see, called optical wavelengths, as well as some in the ultraviolet and infrared.
With multiple observations of the same object at different wavelengths, each of which is in black and white, the observations can then be combined to create a single colored image, which you can see in full size below.
'When image-processing specialists combine raw filtered data into a multi-coloured image like this one, they assign a colour to each filter. Visible-light observations are typically matched to the colour that the filter allows through. Shorter wavelengths of light such as ultraviolet are usually coloured blue or purple, while longer wavelengths like infrared are typically coloured red,' Hubble scientists explain. 'This colour scheme closely represents reality while adding new information from the portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans cannot see.'
The way that Hubble images are produced is similar to how the James Webb Space Telescope uses filters and combines these to create stunning pictures of otherwise invisible objects, a process which requires both scientific knowledge and a degree of artistic flair from the image processors.
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Scientific American
10 hours ago
- Scientific American
Rogue Worlds May Not Be So Lonely After All, Europa Clipper Completes Key Test, and RFK, Jr., Pulls $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Funding
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On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The researchers behind the new study, which still has to go through peer review, used instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope to gather information about eight different rogue planets, each with a mass around five to 10 times greater than Jupiter's. Based on infrared observations, the scientists say, six of the objects seem to have warm dust around them, indicating the presence of the kinds of disks where planets form. The researchers also saw silicate grains in the disks—evidence that the dust is growing and crystallizing. That's typically a disk's signature move when it's gearing up to make some baby planets. 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James Webb telescope captures one of the deepest-ever views of the universe — Space photo of the week
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