The Hubble Space Telescope was dropped off in space in April 1990. Since then it has been sending back images that reach beyond our imaginations capturing stars, nebulae and galaxies that would have never been seen without it. The Hubble Telescope also brings us color inspiration from an unexpected place revealing colors that lie light years away.

Capturing color in outer space with the Hubble Telescope is not as simple as with a normal camera using color film. The Hubble’s camera records light from the universe using “electronic detectors” which capture two or more separate black and white photos. The resulting colors are not always what the human eye would see in space, but nonetheless, the images created by Hubble and the NASA team are imaginative and stunning.

Read more about the colors captured in space at the bottom of this post.

Trifids

Image Credit: NASA

Dust pillars are like interstellar mountains. They survive because they are more dense than their surroundings; however, they are being slowly eroded by a hostile environment. Visible in the image above is the end of a huge gas and dust pillar in the Trifid Nebula, punctuated by a smaller pillar pointing up and an unusual jet pointing to the left. The pink dots are newly formed low-mass stars.

Stingray Nebula

Image Credit: NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the Stingray Nebula, the youngest known planetary nebula. In this image, the bright central star is in the middle of the green ring of gas. Its companion star is diagonally above it at 10 o’clock. The red curved lines represent bright gas that is heated by a “shock” caused when the central star’s wind hits the walls of the bubbles. The nebula is as large as 130 solar systems, but, at its distance of 18,000 light-years, it appears only as big as a dime viewed a mile away. The colors shown are actual colors emitted by nitrogen (red), oxygen (green) and hydrogen (blue).

Water’s Early Journey

Image Credit: NASA

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope observed a fledgling solar system, like the one depicted in this artist’s concept, and discovered deep within it enough water vapor to fill the oceans on Earth five times. This water vapor starts out in the form of ice in a cloudy cocoon (not pictured) that surrounds the embryonic star, called NGC 1333-IRAS 4B (buried in center of image). Material from the cocoon, including ice, falls toward the center of the cloud. The ice then smacks down onto a dusty pre-planetary disk circling the stellar embryo (doughnut-shaped cloud) and vaporizes. Eventually, this water might make its way into developing planets.

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Color in photography has come a long way since the first permanent color photo was taking in 1861. Now nearly 150 years later we thought we would take a look and see where and how color developed in photography. Starting with the black and white beginnings.

Monochrome Photography

Monochrome photography implies the act of recording light in a single color or wavelength and includes such types of photographs as black and white, sepia, infrared photography, and X-ray photography.

Oldest surviving photo created in 1826 by inventor Nicéphore Niépce

Black and White
Black and white photography uses neutral tones of gray ranging from near white to near black, or using a grayscale.

Photo by whappen

Photography began with the discovery that silver is a light sensitive chemical. Silver halides, or silver salt compounds, break down when exposed to light and form black metallic silver2. The darker areas of a negative that received more light during exposure block the light that would reach photographic paper during printing, thus allowing the paper to remain whiter in relation to the local negative density. The lighter areas of the negative that received less light during exposure allow more light to pass during printing, darkening those areas of the print.
- wikipedia:Monochrome_Photography

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Can particular colors affect a student’s performance on exams? Color expert Mark D. Fairchild says yes. He cites recent research establishing an “aversion” response to the color red. “If people are exposed to red just before taking an exam they perform slightly less well than if they were exposed to a different color. The cause of this aversion response is not yet known; it could be learned or it could be something intrinsic that causes us to ‘fear’ red (just a little).

This has also been found in sporting events where athletes dressed in red tended to be more successful . . . perhaps because their opponents were viewing it and having an aversion response (rather than the red having an effect on the athlete wearing it).”

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There is at least one thing to be said about living in colder climates, and that would be being able to experience, first hand, one of the color wonders of the world, aurora.

Aurora originates from the sun. Large amounts of solar particles are thrown into space and travel for about two to three days at a rate of 300 to 1000 kilometers per second in order to reach earth’s outer magnetic field. At this point, the clouds of particles are pulled towards the northern and southern magnetic poles. As they are being pulled towards the poles they are stopped by our atmosphere colliding with other present particles. The interaction of these particles causes what we know as aurora, the northern lights or aurora borleis in the northern hemisphere, and aurora australis or the southern polar lights in the southern hemisphere.

Photos by Arnar Valdimarsson

The colors created by aurora are most commonly, green and red, but depending on the particles present in the clouds from the sun, say if there is nitrogen present, the color can range from low level reds to very high blues and violets.

With the technological advances of film and development of digital imaging we are now able to capture the true beauty of auroras, but it still nothing compared to witnessing the animated currents of color flowing over the horizons and covering landscapes with illuminating waves of light for yourself. So enjoy these stunning images of this magnificent show and give some thought to taking a cold vacation this year.

Photo by natekoechley


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Pearly white, cream, yellow, brown, gray, blue, violet, green, olive. Chicken eggs are colorful even before they’re dyed and decorated for Easter celebrations. “The color of eggs comes exclusively from the pigment in the outer layer of the shell and may range from an almost pure white to a deep brown, with many shades in between.

The only determinant of egg color is the breed of the chicken. . . . A simple test to determine the color of a hen’s eggs is to look at her earlobes. If the earlobes are white, the hen will lay white eggs. If the earlobes are red, she will produce brown eggs” (David Feldman, Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and other Imponderables, 1988.

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Pearls come in more colors than one can count. Part of the allure of owning pearls is that each one is unique. Like people, pearls are never clones (not yet at least) and their color is one of their most striking qualities. Because of the natural material, each pearl must be expertly matched underneath fluorescent lights in order to find a pair.

Sometimes a pearl’s color changes when you spin the pearl. One side of the pearl may be copper and the other green. These pearls are generally thought to be lower in value and are hard to come across unless you are looking through a substantial lot of loose pearls.

Pearl Fun Facts

Pearl is the birthstone for the month of June and it is generally accepted as the wedding anniversary gemstone for the 3rd and 30th years or marriage. The pearl has been a symbol of sacred power and the goddess of love for hundreds of years. In the ancient Mediterranean world, shells and pearls were often symbols for the great goddesses. As the pearl is born from the oyster so was Aphrodite born from a marine conch.

Tahitian Pearls

“Rainbow” Iridescence

The best example of the possibility in pearl color is captured in the baroque shape. Baroque implies that the pearls are not completely round and are generally either drop shaped or circled. Because of the more freeform shape, these pearls capture rainbows of color. The colors dance and change according to the lighting. One of the traditional metaphors to describe such iridescence, (called “orient”), is to think of gasoline on pavement. What makes baroque shaped pearls even more colorful is that their body color is not always one color. Below is a photo of some loose Tahitian pearls. You can see from the following examples the multitude of colors.
- Tahitian Pearls by PearlParadise

Red

Though there are no bright red pearls, there is a shade of Tahitian pearl called “Cherry,” which is truly vamp. These pearls have a ruby tinge to their darker body color. These pearls can be as red as a dark sienna if the body color is also red, or the red can be lighter with a silver body color. Sometimes green is the dominant body color of the pearl and the red is an overtone. These pearls look red at the center with an outline of green beneath. They are rare and hard to find on for sale.


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It has been said that eyes are the window into the soul. If that is true, then eye colors are the soul’s curtains, a decorative adornment that frames your view of the main event. Human eye color is determined by a number of factors, including the pigment of melanin within the iris, as well as the thickness of iris cell layers, which causes light to be absorbed in different ways. These factors are often determined genetically, as certain eye colors can either be dominant or recessive.

Brown Eyes

Brown eyes are a dominant trait extremely prevalent in people from continents like Africa and Asia.

If you’ll recall from 10th grade biology, the easiest way to represent how dominant and recessive traits manifest themselves is using a Punnett Square. In reality, eye colors are derived from a variety of factors, including how much yellow and black pigment certain genes are coded to produce.

Blue Eyes

A recessive trait, blue eyes are often thought of as a sought-after characteristic. One study even shows that blue eyed men seek out blue-eyed women from an evolutionary standpoint in order to verify paternity.

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An astonishing number of different cultures use fireworks in their celebrations of revolution, love and the passing of time. They may be used for many different types of celebrations within each culture, but the energy of color and sound carry a universal experience.

While, as you may all know, 12th century China first created fireworks to scare off evil spirits, but what you might not know is it was actually the Italians who first created the colors in fireworks.

The colors in fireworks are created by changing the ‘color producing chemical’ in the pyrotechnic star, which are pellets containing metal powders, salts or other compounds that, when ignited, burn a certain color. These pellets are then added to a ‘lifting charge’ made of gunpowder and provide the fuel to propel the shells into the air.

The Chemistry of Colors

There are two main mechanisms of color production in fireworks, incandescence and luminescence.

Red

strontium salts, lithium salts

Incandescence is light produced from heat. Heat causes a substance to become hot and glow, initially emitting infrared, then red, orange, yellow, and white light as it becomes increasingly hotter. When the temperature of a firework is controlled, the glow of components, such as charcoal, can be manipulated to be the desired color (temperature) at the proper time. Metals, such as aluminum, magnesium, and titanium, burn very brightly and are useful for increasing the temperature of the firework.

Orange

calcium salts


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Photographs taken with infrared sensitive film can create drastic contrasting colors that create a unusual and unique image. They capture colors that are outside our own range of vision, offering a perspective changing experience.

How It Works

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Usually an “infrared filter” is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (and thus looks black or deep red).

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, very interesting “in-camera effects” can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the “Wood Effect.”

The effect is mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. Chlorophyll is transparent at these wavelengths and so does not block this reflectance (see Red edge). There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is extremely small and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs.

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A simple color choice is costing us millions of dollars a year. It is estimated that over 60 percent of metropolitan areas are covered with heat absorbing black materials, and temperatures in cities average five degrees (Fahrenheit) hotter than in rural areas.

The science behind color reflectivity, or the energy crisis, may not be new, but we are finally fully understanding the impact of a color choice. With black shingles you get an incredible amount of heat absorption (On a 90 degree day a white roof will be 110 degrees and a black roof will be 190 degrees) which transfers to the temperature of the house, making it much more costly to cool.

These color choices could be costing us too much, and along with the list of other factors as to why you are choosing a particular color, energy use should be considered. But if you don’t find having a white roof aesthetically appealing, don’t worry, because researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division are working on roof shingles that can be made in multiple colors, but still reflect enough light to save on energy costs. Since a lot of the sun’s energy comes in at the “near-infrared” side of the light spectrum, creating the reflective pigments needed won’t effect the color.

These advances have the potential of a “net energy savings in the U.S. of more than $750 million per year” plus a reduction in smog (higher temperatures facilitate the necessary chemical reactions needed for the formation of smog; lower overall temperatures would mean less smog).


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