Our perceptions of the colours of Neptune and Uranus have been proven incorrect following the images of the planets from the 1980s, as per research conducted by UK astronomers.
Neptune appeared deep blue in space mission images from the 1980s, whereas Uranus appeared green according to BBC.
However, research has shown that the two ice giant planets have comparable greenish-blue tones.
It has come to light that the original Neptune photos were processed to highlight features of the planet’s atmosphere, changing the planet’s actual colour.
“They did something that I think everyone on Instagram will have done at some time in their life, they tweaked the colours,” Prof Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a University of Edinburgh astrophysics professor, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today”.
“They accentuated the blue just to reveal the features that you can see in Neptune’s atmosphere, and that’s why the image looks very blue, but in reality, Neptune is actually pretty similar to Uranus.”
According to Prof Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford, who oversaw the research, astronomers have long known that the majority of contemporary photographs of the two planets do not faithfully reflect their real colours.
“Even though the artificially saturated colour was known at the time amongst planetary scientists – and the images were released with captions explaining it – that distinction had become lost over time.”
