the color of the universe

[starbug1]

Has anyone ever heard of this...it sounded like a joke when I first read it.

 

Cosmic Latte

 

 

Cosmic Latte is the color of the universe, according to a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in "The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: constraints on cosmic star-formation history from the cosmic spectrum", published in 2002 In this paper, they reported that their survey of the color of all light in the universe added up to a slightly beige white. The survey included more than 200,000 galaxies, and measured the spectral range of the light from a large volume of the universe.

[silkworm]

OH MY GOD.

 

I actually heard this right when it came out (a few years ago). I remember it perfectly. I was very trashed and watching Nightline and Ted Koppel came on and in a bump to commercial said in his little manner, "Scientists have discovered that the color of the universe isn't black, it's more of a beige."

 

Naturally I laughed and laughed and laughed. But I thought about it alot since that day. Then I started to wonder if I had made it up until eventually I came to the conclusion that I must have because something as bizarre as that would definitely have made it onto The Simpsons or something.

 

Thank you so much for bringing this up. I guess it really happened.

[starbug1]

Here's the external link wiki gives, in case you need some reassurance from the bad experience...

The Cosmic Spectrum

 

..it says

 

Enough talk. So what color is the Universe?

 

Really the answer is so close to white, it is difficult to say. That is why such a small error had such a large effect. The most common choice for white is D65. However if one were to introduce a beam of cosmic spectrum into a room strongly illuminated by light bulbs only (Illuminant A) it would appear very blue, as shown above. Overall, probably Illuminant E is the most correct, for looking at the Universe from afar in dark conditions. So our new best guess is:

 

 

 

BEST GUESS:

 

 

 

Although it's arguable that it might look more pinkish (like D65 above). Good luck if you can see the difference between this color and white! You should be able to just see it, however if we had made the page background black, it would be very difficult! We have had numerous suggestions for this color emailled to us. We have a top ten, and deem the winner to be "Cosmic Latte" being caffeine biased!

 

 

...sorry, no allieviation there...I guess it really is "Beige" or as they call it "Latte." I didn't read it all to find out how they figured that out, although it is pretty crazy to think about.

[silkworm]

I have no idea starburg, and I'm not specifically sure at the moment exactly what it even really means. Does it mean that the overall output of color of all the stars works out to kind of a beige, or does it mean that we're kind of in a hole either because we're so small or because of something special about our location in the universe we can't see that if we had more of an overall view of the universe than we do what we'd see when we look out at night would look like kakis instead of darkness?

[insane_alien]

i think that is the overall colour of the components of the universe(hydrogen helium etc.) if they emitted light at the same time. or its the average output of stars.

[starbug1]

i think that is the overall colour of the components of the universe(hydrogen helium etc.) if they emitted light at the same time. or its the average output of stars.

 

 

Well in any case we don't pick up on it.