Every time NASA shares a picture of the place on Twitter or Instagram and explains what it is, many in the comments section ask how these photos were taken, whether the colors are real, and most importantly, they inquire about the cameras fitted with the Hubble telescope. The space company, in its latest post on Instagram, said it has received that question frequently and, therefore, wants to break it down for space enthusiasts. To get started, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes a snapshot and does not re-color the image, which is what a mobile phone camera does.
NASA He said Hubble’s camera would take photos of the wide range of wavelengths coming to Earth in grayscale. Following this, scientists use different color filters in telescopes to take expressions, assign a color to each filter relative to the wavelength, and combine color images to create images.
Several full-color photographs shared by the space company, Hubble, were created by combining three separate expressions – each taken in red, green and blue light.
“When mixed, these three colors can recreate any color of light visible to the human eye,” NASA said in a statement. “Televisions, computer monitors and video cameras recreate colors to show an image!”
NASA said that scientists use the closest approximation of the ultraviolet and infrared spectra in the visible light spectrum to represent that information. The company said this is done because colors cannot be seen in the ultraviolet and infrared spectra. That said, the color in the Hubble images is used to highlight interesting features of the celestial body being studied. The company then explained it with the help of an example.
NASA shared an image of The Ring Nebula, shown in deep blue in the center, visible in light, representing helium, the inner ring, shown in cyan, glowing hydrogen and oxygen, while the red outer ring is made up of nitrogen and sulfur. So, the images taken by NASA’s Hubble telescope are created that way.
Meanwhile, the space agency shared two photos of the spacecraft on Twitter on Monday and wrote: “Hubble’s back!”
Hubble’s back! ????
After the Hubble team successfully ran the backup hardware on the telescope, the lab came back to work over the weekend and took these Galaxy snapshots.
Find out more here: https://t.co/2mWwSGyIKc pic.twitter.com/Y6tVQWrjig
– Hubble (ASNASAHubble) July 19, 2021
One of the pictures shows a three-armed spiral galaxy. NASA added, “After the Hubble team successfully operated the backup hardware on the telescope, the lab came to work over the weekend and took these Galaxy snapshots.”