What Is the True Color of the Universe? Scientists Call It Cosmic Latte

Bright colors in deep space

If you were asked to paint a picture of the universe, what color would you choose? There are so many colors in the universe that we’d have difficulty narrowing it down to just one. Maybe you’d lean toward yellow since that’s the color the sun and many stars appear as. Or perhaps you’d assume it’s black because it surrounds all the planets and stars.

Whatever color you settle on, there’s a good chance it’s not the universe’s actual color. We don’t perceive the universe as the color it truly is. It’s like how the sun is white instead of the yellow or orange hues we depict it as. The universe is vast, and determining its color is complicated. So, is there one true color of the universe? And, if so, what is it?

Does the Universe Have a Color?

Yes, believe it or not, scientists have determined one true color for the universe. However, it’s not a color you’ll spot if you look up at the night sky or examine images of space. Researchers found an average of all the colors of the universe to settle on this hue.

What Defines “the Universe”?

Nebula and galaxies in space

The definition of the universe is “all existing matter and space as a whole.” Everything in space, including all the galaxies, is part of the universe. It’s believed to be about 93 billion light-years in diameter (for reference, one light-year is about 6 trillion miles). So, there’s a lot of area to include when determining the exact color of the universe.

Is It Black?

Black is the first color people think of when they imagine the universe. After all, when we see images of space, black is usually the background color. Even so, it’s NOT the universe’s color.

First of all, in the context of science, black is not considered a color. It’s the absence of detectable light, so it only appears when we don’t see any colors. When studying the colors found in the universe, black wasn’t one of the colors considered because, in space, it’s not a color at all. It’s simply the nothingness we see when no light is nearby.

So, if black isn’t it, then what is?

The Universe’s True Hue: Cosmic Latte

There’s no point in trying to guess the true color of the universe because it’s not a color that’ll come to most people’s minds. It’s a type of beige most commonly known as “Cosmic Latte,” but some other names include “Big Bang Beige,” “Cappuccino Cosmico,” and “Primordial Clam Chowder.”

For most people, the color is somewhat anticlimactic. You might look at it and think, “That’s it?” Yet, this is the chosen color because it’s a look at all of the colors of the universe at once. If you put Cosmic Latte through a prism, you would see a rainbow of all the colors we perceive on Earth, similar to how all the colors of the rainbow make up white light when combined. So, it makes Cosmic Latte a little more magical and pretty when you think of it that way.

Color personality quiz animation

How Was the Color Determined?

Scientific research over galaxy

Professors Ivan Baldry and Karl Glazebrook determined the color of the universe during their research in 2002 (known as the 2 Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey). They measured the light from over 200,000 galaxies and turned it into a spectrum for the entire universe. That study, which was published in The Astrophysical Journal, helped them find the average colors of the universe.

With their findings, Baldry and Glazebrook used a color-matching computer program to convert the cosmic spectrum they found into a color humans can see. They created a graph of the spectrum to show all the energy emitted in the universe for different wavelengths of light. They also comprised the data into a strip of colors to represent the wavelengths in a more visual way.

The researchers then used their data to find the average of all those wavelengths. That average color was the very light beige we know as Cosmic Latte, which is close to white but with a slight warm hint of yellow.

While Cosmic Latte sounds cool, it might seem like a dull color to some people. When people think of cosmic, they probably think of astonishing patterns of stars and planets paired with black, purple, and blue. While beige might not be the color anyone had in mind, it makes sense. White is the result of combining all color wavelengths, so combining all cosmic wavelengths makes it logical that it would be very close to white.

The initial purpose of the study was to determine the ages of the galaxies and the stars in those galaxies. Finding the color of the universe was simply a fun addition to those findings.

Why Doesn’t the Universe Look Beige to Us?

Person silhouette admiring the universe

Beige is not a color we frequently see, and some people think it’s one of the most unsightly hues. This makes the results of this study seem perplexing at first. However, it’s important to remember that the color represents the light emitted throughout the universe rather than just how light appears to us.

If the color of the universe appeared as our eyes see it, it would likely be closer to red. When light gets stretched across long distances, it looks red because the wavelengths become longer (red is the longest wavelength on the visible spectrum). When studying the cosmic wavelengths, the researchers removed this red effect to ensure the results weren’t skewed.

Therefore, Cosmic Latte is the color you would see if you could observe the universe from above. While it might seem like an unusual color for the cosmos, it’s simply because our perception is limited to an Earth-bound perspective.

The Initial Findings Said the Universe Was Turquoise

Turquoise color in the universe

In the early stages of this research, the professors determined that the universe’s color was pale turquoise or green. As we now know, that color is far from the final result. So, why did they initially find such different results?

The issue occurred when trying to convert the color into how the human eye would see it. A bug in the software used to adjust the color caused the result to appear as a shade of green rather than beige. The white point (also known as white balance) was off, creating an inaccurate green shift.

While the scientists were initially embarrassed by the mistake, they explained that there aren’t errors in science but instead errors in perception. At first, we perceived the color of the universe as turquoise, but now, our perception has changed to show us the real color: Cosmic Latte. Glazebrook stated that he was confident they found the correct color and that the same mistake wouldn’t happen again.

Will the Universe’s Color Stay the Same Forever?

Universe with red nebula

Even though data determined that Cosmic Latte is the current color of the universe, it might not always be. Stars change colors as they age, so the wavelengths observed in the study may differ if they conduct this experiment again. It’s suspected that the universe’s color will gradually lean toward red because there will be more red stars in the sky.

Star formation is less common across the universe, so fewer new, bright blue stars will exist in the sky. Then, there will also be more older stars (red giants). With fewer new stars and more red giants, Cosmic Latte will become reddish, and they’ll need to change the name as it’ll be an entirely different color.

However, this color change won’t be noticeable in our lifetimes. A new star can take millions or even billions of years to become a red giant, so the universe’s color won’t change significantly for many years. It looks like Cosmic Latte is here to stay for now. A lot can change in billions of years, but maybe researchers will conduct a new study for the color of the universe when the time comes.

Was the Color Different in the Past?

The universe’s color won’t always be the same, and it hasn’t always been the same. Even though the universe’s hue wasn’t determined until 2002, research leads us to believe that the average color of the universe used to lean toward orange or red, just like it’s expected to billions of years from now. This is likely because of the number of red giants in the sky. As more new stars appeared, the universe’s color shifted to the beige color we know today.

No one knows exactly what the universe looked like in the beginning. It likely had no color at all or was completely black. Many questions about the universe and its appearance remain unanswered, but at least we know Cosmic Latte is its average color for now.

The Color of the Universe Doesn’t Include All Galaxies

Several different colored galaxies

There are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. So, the 200,000 galaxies included in the study by Baldry and Glazebrook seem insignificant compared to the number of galaxies out there. However, adding all the galaxies to the study just isn’t possible.

Most galaxies are too far away to study, so measuring the light from all of them is impossible. Since beige is close to white, there’s a good chance that they would still result in a beige color, but there’s just no way of knowing for sure.

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