To Show How Small and Insignificant We Really Are

No, there are no colours in the universe. We see different colours of the spectrum on account of our eyes gathering the light-waves and passing it on to the brain which in turn makes us "see" the colours according to the wavelenghts. (Of course, it is a lot more complicated than this!)

Surely you have heard of some people who are "colour-blind". These people lack the above faculty.

The NASA photos you see have all undergone a complex colour enhancement without which they would be rather drab. Even some simplest amateur astrophotos are the result of overlapping three photos, taken with red, green and blue colour filters.

Originally posted by watapi
No, there are no colours in the universe.

They were swinging for beige for a while there but you are right, hubble gives us lovely pictures but they are not what the universe looks like in terms of colours.


Source

The astronomers later said an incorrect computer algorithm in some freeware they had grabbed from the Web had rendered the color wrong. They apologized and said they were embarrassed. The universe became beige, spawning another round of stories. Beige, however, turns out to be a near impossibility in the world of light emissions -- only reflections can really be beige. Our hypothetical viewer almost surely would not see a beige universe when gawking from afar.

The researchers have not given up, however. In fact, they've sifted through e-mail suggestions and given their color a popular name: "Cosmic Latte."

"Ridiculous" is how Kenneth Brecher, a professor of astronomy at Boston University, views the question of the color of the universe. "Meaningless and absurd," he calls the whole affair. "It's very nearly white." But even that view depends on a viewer's point of view.

Wait, how can the universe be mostly white if its vast emptiness is black?

I guess they're right, it really is meaningless to worry about it. I have alot of those enhanced photos displaying randomly as my desktop background.

Originally posted by DYepes
Wait, how can the universe be mostly white if its vast emptiness is black?

All cats are black at night, regardless of their colour. According to that article I found, that rather large sun, Betelgeuse, is usually depicted as red but really if we were up close to it we would see the colour white not red, the red is only slightly discernable from a distance but up close it will be white.... go figure!

Well, it's possible that Betelgeuse is actually reddish. The surface temperature of the star is only about half that of our Sun; the Sun's surface temperature being roughly 6000 degrees Kelvin. Essentially it's not "white-hot" but "red-hot" There are stars with surface temperatures in excess of 12,000 degrees Kelvin which appear "blue".

And then "darkness" (black) is only the absence of "light" (white). We cannot "produce" darkness like we can produce light in various ways!
Likewise the temperature. There is no such thing as "cold" - there is only heat, starting from absolute zero which translates to -273.15 degrees celcius or -459.67 degrees Farenheit. We call it "cold" whereas in fact, it is "heat".

Since light (rays) travelling through the vacuum of space can not be "seen" by us, I will settle for a "dark" universe in which the stars are seen by us only because the light from the stars is processed by our eyes. (Like when we see the Moon, we are only seeing sunlight reflected off it's surface).

Originally posted by David2012
@undefeated, hey you saw what the bleep too?

Love that dvd, some of it is being 'heavily' contested though.

@mayan, That's called imagination

It's a good thing to have

Well noone seems to care but I'm still going to post it.
The number of civilizations out there currently with practical interstellar communications according to the drake equation, using the most conservative guesses, some still from drake, other from nasa = curiously 365

Hey David. Yes, I've seen "What the Bleep Do We Know" multiple times.
Great piece of film. I found it fascinating to say the least. It covers such a broad spectrum of ideas from many different fields of study that I'm sure some of it will be contested, hotly debated, and ultimately disproved. Still, great stuff. I, for one, am also fascinated with the results from your Drake Equation. Great work. This is a great thought experiment for anyone with the means to do it. Could you please elaborate on your calculations? I was especially interested in your calculation for "L" in the equation. Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by watapi
No, there are no colours in the universe. We see different colours of the spectrum on account of our eyes gathering the light-waves and passing it on to the brain which in turn makes us "see" the colours according to the wavelenghts. (Of course, it is a lot more complicated than this!)

The NASA photos you see have all undergone a complex colour enhancement without which they would be rather drab. Even some simplest amateur astrophotos are the result of overlapping three photos, taken with red, green and blue colour filters.

Well, not quite. There are colors in the universe. Color means the wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum in the visible to human eyes range. To say there are no colors is equivalent to saying there are no wavelengths. Another way to look at this would be sound. You wouldn't say there is no 'A' note in the universe would you? The 'A' note, on a piano for example, is defined as the sound something makes when it vibrates at 440hz. It's the same thing with color. The color red has a wavelength (not sure what it is) but you get the meaning.

The nasa photographs depending on what kind of camera they were taken with, undergo a not so complicated enhancement. Most of those photos were taken with black and white camera because there is more definition in a black and white camera which is one reason that photography students must learn on a b/w camera. A good deal of those nasa photos have color manually added to them by an artist with photoshop-like software. It's as simple as that. Some stars etc have colors, such as a blue star, because of either 1) we can photograph them with color cameras or 2) We can predict what color they are because of observations on their makeup and temperature etc.

Hi Ace_SD - thanks for your comments. Quite true, colours are there in a sense, but these colours are only our perception of the wavelengths. I did not say there was no light. (The wavelength of RED is 700 nm and blue is 470.) With so many stars in the visible universe, there is light alright.

Re: the NASA photos, there was a link to a page explaining how their photos were made, I didn't find it just now. Sounded pretty complicated to me

Thanks again.

Hello again!

Here is the link to how the astro pictures are enhanced for our benefit:

hubblesite.org...



hubblesite.org...

Originally posted by watapi
Hi Ace_SD - thanks for your comments. Quite true, colours are there in a sense, but these colours are only our perception of the wavelengths. I did not say there was no light. (The wavelength of RED is 700 nm and blue is 470.) With so many stars in the visible universe, there is light alright.

Re: the NASA photos, there was a link to a page explaining how their photos were made, I didn't find it just now. Sounded pretty complicated to me

Thanks again.

Hi watapi,

Good point.
And thanks for the link.
Take care.

Hey watapi,

That was a good link. Thanks again. When I mentioned photoshop before
I was recalling what I saw on t.v. when one 'scientist' said something like
we use a photo editor to add colors. However, it was more complicated than
I thought.

Ace

This video also shows just how insignifigent we are.

Great video i got chill bumbs.


The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

www.youtube.com...


[edit on 6-5-2007 by FiFtEeN]

Had to bump this thread just to give people how big the perspective of the mind of space is out there.

while we DO get that feeling of "being small and insignificant" when we look at the larger objects...

the same is so with looking downward towards the infinitely small.

i think we are the purposeful size.

right in the middle of infinity... the crossing "X" in the middle of an infinity symbol.

big enough to contemplate it all...

small enough to be humbled by it all.

-

There's a song that very successfully describes the OPs post.



Just remember that you're standing.....

nice, still why does this help the logic of "other Life" lol its freaking stars, yea its cool to see how big they can get and how huge space is compared to our little box called earth. i still dont believe in aliens and that other horse sh*t, seriously. to me all the vast areas of space were made for our amusement and something to ponder on. Not an excuse for other forms of life. Look at the ocean and how much is there.

reply to post by FiFtEeN


Thanks for the opportunity to enjoy the "Ultra Deep Field," by way of the Hubble! 78 Billion is a nice rounded number. I like chocolate cookies, but just thinking about eating 78 billion...well I don't think that I could do it. I mean just think about it. I wouldn't have time to even eat ice cream, because all of my time would be spent on cookies.

It really brings up another notion actually. All those numbers, & all of those specks of light that represent suns, solar stars and potential planets with the possibility of intelligent life... it sort of qualitatively & quantitatively justifies the presence of a supreme being who really has done a jolly fine job of putting everything together. Even with all of the neat & beautiful galactic formations, there is a keen sense that one gets when seeing the order of it all. Truly magnificent indeed.

This is a great thread. It still survives here at ATS, after all of these months

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I've seen these pictures before, and the thing that always comes to mind, is that -- yeah the Universe is vast. It sort of demands that life exist on other planets.

But -- what if -- (and this is more incredible than anything else I can think of) -- what if, in this enormity of scale -- life exists ONLY ON EARTH?

Could that be possible? Yeah. It could.

I'm not saying that is the case. I am simply saying that IT IS POSSIBLE.

Then -- the bigger the universe is -- the more important human life appears to be. If conscious thought exists only on this tiny planet, then this tiny planet is the most important thing in the universe.

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Some people will say that it is impossible, and will argue with me. Please understand I am just talking about possibilities here. I don't want to argue. My post here becomes meaningless as soon as we establish indisputable contact with another non-human sentience, or find some inarguably alien artifact. Until then, being alone in this immense universe is something that you have to consider in the realm of possible.

What are the implications if that is actually true? Are we all diminished? Or elevated?

Yea but for insignificant specks living on an insignificant speck we sure have a ego to match the largest star. Hell, most the world has a hard time accepting the fact that we aren't some great special thing, rather than an animal with a (possibly) new way of going about stuff.

My what fools we mortals be.

we might be small in the grand scheme of the universe. But we are not insignificant. You are all unique and special in Gods heart.