A recent study led by physicists at the University of Oxford has challenged the long-standing perception of Neptune's colour, asserting that the eighth planet in our solar system is not the rich royal blue it has been believed to be for decades.
The findings, based on the images captured by NASA's Voyager 2 probe, reveal Neptune to be a delicate powder blue, resembling its neighbouring planet, Uranus.
The misconception about Neptune's colour arises from artificially enhanced images taken during Voyager 2's close encounter with the ice giant in 1989. The images, originally captured in separate colours, were later recombined into composites that did not accurately represent the true colour of the planet. The contrast was also exaggerated to highlight specific features such as Neptune's bands and clouds, resulting in a perception that Neptune was artificially too blue.
Lead author of the study, Patrick Irwin, explained that while planetary scientists were aware of the artificially-saturated colour at the time of Voyager 2's mission, this distinction became lost over time.
"Even though the artificially-saturated colour was known at the time amongst planetary scientists and the images were released with captions explaining it, the distinction had become lost over time," Irwin stated.
The study utilized modern telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, to re-process the Voyager 2 images. This re-evaluation aimed to produce a more accurate representation of how Neptune would appear to the naked eye.
The researchers confirmed that Uranus, often considered a monotone looking planet, retains its delicate pale blue colour. Neptune, however, appears slightly bluer, a nuance attributed to a thinner haze layer on the planet.
Experts suggest that these findings shed new light on our understanding of the outer planets in our solar system and emphasize the importance of re-evaluating historical data to uncover the true nature of celestial bodies.
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