Our impression of the actual color of Neptune’s appearance turns out to be wrong all the time. Scientists originally didn’t understand why Neptune and Uranus are obviously similar in all aspects, but their appearance colors are obviously different. Now new research shows that the colors of these two ice giant planets in the solar system are actually very similar, and they are both water-green.
Data collected by Voyager 2 when it flew by Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989 showed that Uranus is a beautiful aqua, while Neptune is a darker blue. However, the two planets have almost the same atmosphere composition, size and other conditions, but their colors are distinct. There is a difference that puzzles scientists.
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Astronomers have combined data from other telescopes to develop atmospheric models and pointed out that the reason why Uranus is “paler” than Neptune is due to the accumulation of haze due to slower atmospheric flow conditions. But now new images produced by reprocessing the old data suggest that the problem that has vexed astronomers for decades was just a misunderstanding.
The Oxford University team pointed out that Voyager 2 only used a single wavelength of light to observe Uranus and Neptune at a time, so all images were synthesized after several monochromatic observations. Sometimes the composite images were not balanced, and Neptune was slightly “discolored” during the synthesis process. .
Because the contrast of many Neptune images has been enhanced to allow scientists to see cloud bands, clouds, and storms more clearly, Neptune appears bluer than its true color.
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To get the true colors of Neptune and Uranus, the Oxford University team used data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) to rebalance Voyager The composite image created by No. 2 found that both ice giant planets are similar in color to icy blue-green.
▲ The upper row shows the colors of Uranus and Neptune synthesized from Voyager 2 data; the lower row shows the real colors of Uranus and Neptune that have been reprocessed.
Although Neptune is still slightly blue, the difference is not as obvious as in the past. This is because the haze around Neptune is thinner than that of Uranus. Our past misunderstandings about the color of Neptune and the unusual color changes of Uranus have finally been solved.
new paperPublished in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
(Image Source:Oxford university）
