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Why The Stars Don’t Look Like The Telescopes Say They Do
On the false colours of astronomy
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Are the colours of astronomical images real? That is, if we were to hop on a spacecraft and fly out to see these objects — these vivid nebulae and these majestic galaxies — would we really see them as our telescopes claim to?
Take, for example, the Eagle Nebula, a cloud of gas and dust in the Serpens constellation. You have probably seen images of it before — the nebula, with its dramatic smoky towers, is a favourite target of powerful telescopes. Within it, and amidst a vast cocoon of gas and dust, new stars are forming; an event that gives rise to its popular name “The Pillars of Creation”.
What do these pillars actually look like, though? If you study the image Hubble made in 1995, they seem brown and opaque, towering like some distant fingers stretching high into the sky. But if you look at another picture, taken by a telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile, the pillars are a soft pink, standing gently amidst the glittering stars.
Perhaps we can turn to the James Webb, the most advanced telescope ever built, to settle the question? But it too…
