What are the true colors of planets? – La Nacion (Argentina)

The images coming from space probes we have to study the planets and moons do not cease to amaze

are these the true colors of the planets ?. Photo: Thinkstock

The images coming from space probes we have out there to study the planets and moons do not cease to amaze

Some. planets are shown in more intense than other colors. But what we are seeing the true colors

The short answer is “sometimes” because there are truly colorful

Others are covered by rock and are virtually gray?.; so if you stumble upon a picture of them that are full of color, you can be sure that the image is not very accurate.

They usually tend to exaggerate the subtle differences that the human eye I could not detect without some help.

Saturn usually a pale yellow. Photo: NASA

Anyone who has used a smartphone to take photos phone, you’ve probably encountered several options to exaggerate or lower the tone of the colors

Techniques. Similar are used to process images arriving from space telescopes, and almost always the colors are exaggerated.

what happens is that a camera placed in a spaceship rarely detects the colors in the same way that makes a human eye.

for example, red, green and blue components usually are recorded separately as three separate images in black and white and combined colored with the sole purpose of showing the photo .

the way the colors blend is designed to be as it would your eyes.

what’s more, the colors in the image does not correspond to the original, even if you have not made any attempt to exaggerate.

in principle, a camera, a spacecraft can record any part of the light spectrum.

When one of the channels is more beyond the visible range, such as ultraviolet, we still have to use red, green or blue to display it.

This means that the resulting image has a “false color”, which can be exaggerated even more.

The giant planets

The Great red Spot is red. Photo: NASA

Jupiter: this giant of the Solar System has “the Great Red Spot”, a huge storm oval shaped

While the more subtle colors. we see in other parts of Jupiter may be due to clouds granite look through different depths of the atmosphere, clouds in the stain itself was stained red by a contaminant that is still unknown.

it may be concerned phosphorus, a sulfur compound or a complex organic molecule.

The propensity of Jupiter by strong colors is shared by his innermost moon, Io.

Io has a natural yellow color, while Europe often retouched. Photo: NASA

There, frequent volcanic eruptions bathe the surface sulfide and sulfur dioxide, which makes the TV look like a yellow pizza with black olives, which are actually stains lava that are too fresh to be hit the yellow.

in contrast, the next moon, Europa, has a surface of frozen water.

This makes it very reflective but without much color.

most of the images of Europe color that you usually see is a reproduction with an exaggerated color.

Saturn has more colors dumber than Jupiter, despite to have a similar atmosphere.

Its natural color is pale yellow, so any photo you see with vivid tones will be a who colored.

This is the natural color of Neptune. Photo: NASA

Uranus and Neptune also hide in an immensely dense atmosphere

To our eyes, Uranus appears green and blue Neptune, because their clouds more. high condensate methane seen through a methane gas much depth that filters the red component of sunlight.

there is not much variation in color, the highest clouds appear white but everything else is blue or green.

rocky planets

We usually refer to Mars as the “Red Planet”.

the iron in its rocks and powder become iron oxide. It is why the planet looks red to the naked eye when we see in the sky.

It also looks red from orbit, and red is for the probes that explore its soil.

Three versions of the same view of Mars taken by the Rover probe. On the left: A raw. Medium: an adjusted to how the human eye would see. Right: how it would look under the light conditions on Earth. Photo: NASA

Here the debate is to show the colors as “really” look or if it should be displayed as if the quality of light on the planet was like dela Earth.

Venus is shrouded in a dazzling white clouds and the surface has only been visited by a bunch of Soviet probes

the dense clouds allow only a dull red glow reaches the ground.; so everywhere is that orange.

But in reality, the rocks are kind of dull gray lava.

This is the natural gray of Venus. Photo: NASA

Mercury is an airless world made from a drab gray rock with just a hint of red

Only reflects 7% of sunlight. falls on it, it’s just a little more than reflect a burning coal, but is three times closer to the sun than Earth. It is this proximity that makes sunlight make it look very bright, and does not need to adjust the brightness of the image.

However, to unravel the color variations that hide in landscape features of Mercury, it is common practice to use a false color to basically increase very subtle differences in natural color and make it readily apparent.

But do not think this is cheating.

the surface of Venus taken by Venera 13 probe Pictured above is the natural color of the planet, while the bottom is as would if I had the same sunlight on Earth .. Photo: NASA

they reveal truths about worlds that could have seen if your eyes and mind had developed there, and that the do the information we have available from the planets is maximized.

* David Rothery has written several books about the planets and moons of the solar system and this story originally published on the site the Conversation.