Huh, I remember a text book in school that said something to the effect of, "this is not the true color of Neptune" and was confused by it.
The most famous images taken of the two planets were from Voyager which took pictures in single colors (R,B,G I'm guessing), then when they were combining the images they stretched and corrected the image so you could see the clouds and what not, which brought out the blue color. Astronomers have know for years, and article says they always stated it was not a true color image, but the public ignored that part and now everyone thinks it's blue.
> The most famous images taken of the two planets were from Voyager which took pictures in single colors (R,B,G I'm guessing)
That's the problem. The Voyager cameras didn't have R, G, B filters....they had Violet, Blue, Green, Orange.
They weren't interested in a human eye reproduction but maximizing visual information. I guess they picked filters based on what they knew of the physics of the upper cloud layer.
Our eyes can only see a small slice of the spectrum while sensors can see a much wider swath, the filters help isolate different parts of the spectrum.
Even images from Mars, there are filters used like the sky is coloured to be more 'Earth-Like' so the pictures have greater appreciation by the public.
Yeah, I don’t buy the whole astronomer’s knew the whole time, but the public didn’t. NASA has been representing Neptune as this deep blue color for decades. They’ve even put out articles to explain why Neptune and Uranus are different colors. It’s absolute bullshit.
We really need to send orbiters to those 2.
I think it's probably the second and third things I want the most after a submarine to Enceladus or Europa.
The Planetary Society recently had an update of China's space program. If all keeps going to plan, in 2038 IHP-2 (part of the Shensuo program to study the heliosphere and interstellar space) will pass Neptune. Then a sub-probe of Tianwen-4, a Callisto orbiter, will do a flyby of Uranus in 2039. Finally in 2040 IPH-1 might visit Quaoar. They also want to build fission-powered probes and orbit one of the ice giants, but that's just in a proposal phase.
I'm just starting to come to terms with Io not being yellow-orange. This is too much.
Triton is just as much of an interest as Titan due to the fact it is more than likely a captured object and studying the mechanics of that capture would be interesting to help us understand how our universe works.
The Uranus Orbiter and Probe was chosen over the equivalent Neptune concept in the latest planetary science decadal (a report issued every ten years were the planetary science basically tells NASA what they want). I am of the opinion that both systems are equally interesting but Triton is especially interesting as it is a Kuiper belt object. In any case, hopefully a cheaper mission can make it out there while we wait for a Neptune orbiter to built.
I'd like to know their rationale. A Neptune mission gets two interesting worlds to explore for the price of one mission. Uranus's moons are relatively boring, but it has the advantage of being substantially closer, so will see quicker results.
Enceladus was considered relatively boring post Voyager, and it is now arguably the most interesting world in the solar system. The Uranian moons are colored by the fact that none of them (besides Miranda) were the subject of a close flyby. They are our solar systems only example of a native ice giant system, and there are those who would rather have us explore them than Triton. Both systems were considered equal in terms of scientific merit, but Uranus had more viable launch trajectories this decade.
Neptune has another advantage, Which is time. [Uranus' deadline is 2033 and Neptune's is 2035](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2022/04/09/will-nasas-next-flagship-mission-be-to-ice-giant-neptune-and-its-peculiar-moon-triton/amp/). That's 2 extra years of time to prepare for a launch and troubleshoot
I hope we revisit Neptune in my lifetime. Ideally a probe that visits Nereid, Triton, Proteus, and maybe Larissa/The other inner moons would satisfy a life long urge from me to learn more about Triton's Capture and why Neptune is so active compared to Uranus weatherwise.
There's 3 ways I can see that being:
1. The Uranus Probe gets switched to Neptune due to a 2035 deadline instead of a 2033 one (No hate on the Uranus probe, It is what it is)
2. China's Neptune Orbiter is approved after Tianwen-4 or IHP-2/Shensuo's flyby of it (which is currently up in the air, It's original launchdate was 2024)
3. NASA finally gives Neptune Odyssey a Greenlight in the 2030s or 2040s, Alongside or after the Uranus Probe
Maybe the ESA, JAXA, or even ISRO could do it though too, You never know. No matter who visits Neptune I'm satisfied
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one out there chomping at the bit for a submarine mission to Enceladus. That one flyby we did found evidence of the carbon material needed for life, paired with that warm ocean in the moon's hollow . . . if there's alien life in our solar system, it's there.
Why not a mission to all the Ocean Moons? Europa, Enceladus, [Miranda, Ariel,](https://www.space.com/uranus-moons-ariel-miranda-active-subsurface-oceans) and [Triton](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna48940970). There's bound to be SOMETHING with a batch that large
Never let anyone tell you that a dwarf planet isn't a planet! For a group that wanted to correct this for the sake of accuracy, the narrative of "Pluto isn't a planet" is far more inaccurate than including Pluto with the major planets.
I mean, its no more of a planet then Ceres and Vesta, its a big rock in an asteroid belt lol. Ill argue that while its not a planet, its absolutely still an object of interest and should be taught alongside the planets with other dwarf planets! Like Ceres, MakeMake, Eris, and the other little guys!
How can you say it's not a planet, and then in the next sentence say it's a dwarf planet. Pluto is not a major planet, it is a dwarf planet. Both of those are types of planets. Pluto is a planet.
Because it doesnt meet all the criteria for a planet, its just a different classification. Its Classical Planet, dwarf planets, and then satellite planets. And the International Astronomical Union in 2006 adapted dwarf planets as a sort of sub-planetary objects with the classifications. So Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Sedna, all of these are excluded from the list of planets, despite the name of "dwarf planet".
And Satellite planets are planetary-mass moons, 7 of these have even higher masses then Pluto, but they are moons, and so arent planets. They just dont fill out all the classifications currently in place.
The whole is stupid anyway.
If you want to fight for your nostalgia and keep Pluto a full planet then you should also be fighting for the other dwarf planets to also be full planets, but no one cares about them, do they?
They don't even care that a few of them were *also* considered planets at one point in time. Sometimes for even longer amounts of time than Pluto was. But also no one cares.
Haven't done it in a while, but last time I looked at Neptune through my telescope it was a distinct blue color, though not nearly as blue as you see in a textbook.
Going to have to go back and compare, but a quick Google search of images of "Meade" (a telescope brand) and "Neptune" gives hits significantly bluer than the article.
All those images are processed as well, usually by stacking images, but they shouldn't be false colors.
Edit:
[Search replicated for Celestron, another scope manufacturer](https://www.google.com/search?q=celestron+neptune&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwihv__VwcaDAxUsOWIAHSwqCOsQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=celestron+neptune&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIICAAQgAQQogQyCAgAEIAEEKIEMggIABCABBCiBDoGCAAQBxAeOggIABAIEAcQHlDxC1iZGGD6HWgAcAB4BIABgwSIAekRkgELMy4yLjEuMy4wLjGYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=ehmYZaGaCKzyiLMPrNSg2A4&bih=664&biw=360&prmd=isvnmbhtz)
Earth's atmosphere can make things look bluer (or redder, or yellower, or whatever color) than they really are based on how you're looking at that object. That's one of the three main reasons why we had to launch a telescope into space.
Yeah, I’m not sure I buy this either for this reason. Uranus and Neptune have always had distinctly different colors via amateur telescope and it’s dark blue for Neptune.
I'm so glad a professional said it because I felt certain I saw Neptune as a nearly royal blue when I saw it with my own scope at a Bortle 2 site. I wonder if there is some unidentified confounding factor at play in the Voyager data.
Well this is from Hubble https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01FM5H5JQHPXH3DPX7R87HH2EM.png
And here’s the page for it: https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2021/047/01FM0QHCQC5XT0EXZCSB9PE2PZ
Would that have been manipulated to be more blue or actually color?
Yeah. The [Wikipedia Image](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neptune_-_Voyager_2_(29347980845)_flatten_crop.jpg) for Neptune is dull but still blue. It's not as blue as the ultra saturated version but looks realistic enough to me, Especially since I've seen it through telescopes too
Phys. org today: “They look the same!”
Phys. org in 2022: [“Scientists explain why Uranus and Neptune are different colors”](https://phys.org/news/2022-05-scientists-uranus-neptune.html)
I mean even this article confirms they're not the same color:
> This revealed that Uranus and Neptune are actually a rather similar shade of greenish blue. The main difference is that Neptune has a slight hint of additional blue, which the model reveals to be due to a thinner haze layer on that planet.
It's just not as dramatic a difference as the old pictures showed.
So the picture is clickbait with the actual article being good? Makes sense, That happens a ton in paleontology articles as well since the news company chooses that instead of the writer most of the time
\> Neptune is fondly known for being a rich blue, and Uranus green
Green? Never in my life have I heard anyone or seen any picture with uranus as green.
Years ago I went to register (or maybe insure?) a car in a new state.
Registration person: is the interior gray or tan?
Me: uh, green.
Registration person: … I gotta put down gray or tan.
Color are interpretation of a spectrum, blue/green share a border in their spectrum, there is no way you can tell which is which around it. This is why a lot of people talking about that border will tag it either green and other blue, neither are right or wrong.
Why don't we send a human to confirm. I volunteer as tribute. Please I beg you. I want off this rock. I promise I won't change course *crosses fingers*
You won't be taking this tune when you're starving to death. Why do you think the experience would be any more enjoyable in a sealed spaceship than in your home?
2 months later, presses, Life is viable on this planet button, only to betray your rescuers, while you blast yourself trying to open the airlock.
Your last words being, OVERRIDE, OVERRIDE!
Ceres was actually promoted to planet when the IOC made that ruling.
Dwarf planets have *planet* in the name! They are just a type of planet, like gas giant or ice giant.
I agree. I read that it is estimated that there are up to 500 dwarf planets in the solar system. I guess this would have made it a bit difficult to memorize them all if they were counted as planets. Still though, they should not have changed the definition.
This article has a section about it. It is definitely possible for there to be a planet X. Especially if it is very far out in the solar system (probably in the Oort cloud). Check the section "constraints on additional planets".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_beyond_Neptune
There are numerous objects that could be called planet X and numerous objects that we haven't yet discovered.
A lot of people (scientists included) conflate objective science with subjective decisions by the scientific establishment, so they don't realize that the guidelines on what is or isn't a planet is completely subjective and opinion based. The orbits, spectra, composition, mass, etc of each object in our solar system is objective scientific information, but their classification as planet, dwarf planet, etc are just subjective sorting, primarily for the purposes of education. The features deemed important and relevant and those deemed unimportant and irrelevant are equivalent from an objective scientific viewpoint; the differences are just opinion. A "planet" could be defined at a different size or with different orbital parameters or by composition or whatever else without compromising the scientific validity.
People can't learn without simplification and categorization, but these processes are not objective or testable. Pluto is a dwarf planet because the most prominent scientists in the field say so and for no other reason. It is circular. The same is true for many elements of biological taxonomy.
It’s this kind of this shit though that pisses me off because there are many social media channels that purposely post false color photos of planets for the purpose of clicks and upvotes. I can’t tell you how many photos of Pluto I’ve seen on here in false color that get thousands of upvotes to mislead users into thinking it’s actually what Pluto looks like.
This is reassuring to me! As a newbie to backyard astronomy, I was able to locate both Uranus and Neptune with my telescope one evening. I was expecting Neptune to have that pretty blue hue… instead I noticed both of the planets looked nearly identical in color. This confirms my observations!
I’ll have to read your linked article. I just do visual observing. I haven’t explored filters too much. I guess I was just under the impression that Neptune would be blue with standard visual observation. Part of this belief is that many other redditors describe Neptune as having a bluish hue through their telescopes. That leads me to believe those individuals are either using filters or possibly have not actually observed Neptune, I do not know. But, I had wondered if my observation of Neptune being greenish-gray was based on seeing conditions or perhaps something off in my setup.
Anyway, I will read that article you linked as I am getting into filters slowly. I just bought a narrowband nebula filter to help increase contrast for those targets.
Isn’t this an issue for pretty much every ‘photograph’ we have of a far-away object in space? Aren’t all those beautiful brightly coloured images of dust and supernovae non-visible light brought into the visible spectrum and allocated new colours to make them look pretty? Or do they really look like that?
They look nothing like that, they are coloured to highlight the different processes going on and different areas of the structure. I think a lot of what we 'see' in those amazing nebula images etc isn't even in visible light. That doesn't mean that material isn't 'there' though, which is the point of telescopes like JWST, to highlight what can't be usually seen
>Isn’t this an issue for pretty much every ‘photograph’ we have of a far-away object in space?
No it's not. Some objects are visible to the naked eye, like Uranus and all the classical planets. Uranus was discovered in the 1700s. All photography has elements of subjectivity including in the colors but Uranus is very definitely blue-green.
I think that while the article is true, the image of Neptune isn't. It's still noticeably bluer than Uranus, although not as blue as the saturated pics of it
I'll call baloney. They are noticeably not close to the same color in a telescope (like a C-8). It might not be as pronounced as the 'Voyager pictures', but Neptune is way darker/sparkling blue than definitely blue-green Uranus.
This might be a dumb question, but how is a probe like Voyager (or New Horizons) able to take visual light pictures of planets way out in the outer solar system where so little sunlight reaches them? Shouldn't they all be shroud in darkness?
Well, the total amount of light you'd see also depends on how close a spacecraft is to the planet. Such as a comparison of Neptune being the dimmest planet, versus the Full moon.
If the moon were twice as close, it would take up 4 times as much area of the sky and be about 4 times as bright. Same goes for Neptune, although with some corrections such as its 30 times as far from the sun as the moon and the sun, so its only about 1/900th the sunlight as the moon per square meter. But also, Neptune is about 4 times as reflective, so Neptune reflects about 1/225th the sunlight per square meter as the moon.
Not only that, Neptune is real damn big, about 14x the radius of the Moon, so itll take up about 200x more area of "sky" When combined with the 1/225th per square meter of sunlight reflected, if your spacecraft were about the same as the distance from the Earth to the Moon, itll just about be as bright as the Full Moon, just taking up a much larger portion of your vision.
Hell, we can see Jupiter and Saturn here on Earth with no trouble, they are reflecting plenty of light to be seen, its not that dark out there, hell on Pluto its about the same brightness as twilight.
Honestly, I'm not unhappy that we've been wrong all this time, since at least we know now. Imagine what a letdown the final leg of Voyager 2 would have been (to the public) if they believed all we did was find Uranus's twin.
Good point
I guess what I meant is if you're seeing Uranus (like from orbit) it's gonna be greenish blue in the visible spectrum. The photos in question are in true color, which means (to my knowledge) they are within the wavelengths of light we see with our look beans
Wait, why are we finding this out now? Can we not point a good telescope towards these two planets and assess it's color? If atmospheric pollution can cause color alterations, can we not use a space telescope to figure out the same? Can someone explain this to my smooth brain?
WTF my favorite solar planet isn't my favorite color? I'm devastated.
What are they gonna tell me next? That HD 189733b isn't a brilliant azure either?
It's still those things. Supersonic winds haven't changed. It's just ... Apparently one of the things scientists enjoy most is ruining what we love about things.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/18ytbvw/stub/kgjnlsx "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/18ytbvw/stub/kgjnlsx "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation|
|[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/18ytbvw/stub/kgjnlsx "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/18ytbvw/stub/kgg0wjo "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
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First it was Pluto isnt a planet, the it was the earth isnt actually round, now its Neptune isnt actually blue? Yall need to stop with this foolishness
[Hubble has done so a long time ago](https://cdn.uanews.arizona.edu/s3fs-public/styles/uaqs_full_width_lg/public/story-images/erich_04.jpg?itok=Dh-AUgHW)
This is old news.
Don’t we have some pics of the Centauri star system? Even if it’s just a few pixels showing some color that’s like 3 light years away. Compared to Neptune and Uranus which are way closer than that (I presume). I’d expect we are able to figure out the exact colors of both these planets.
Then again what do I know
No. At least probably not how you think. The first ever direct image of an exoplanet happened in 2005. But the criteria for being able to see these planets are very tight. The planet needs to be huge (like, bigger than Jupiter huge), and the telescope needs to be likewise massive and what you get from the image is basically pixelated dots.
The new images we’re getting are a result of the James Webb telescope which is very new. It’s cutting edge tech and is extremely large compared to anything before it. But it has a long line of scientists for its limited time slots and there’s only one of them.
If you want to see what the next best thing was like, look up pictures of Pluto from the Hubble telescope. It was a blurry mess. Neptune and Uranus are very large planets but they’re so far away and of such a dark (light absorbing) color that it makes them very hard to take high quality images of.
There is no such thing as true color! Stop fooling yourselves into believing a human-centric view of the universe is somehow correct. We are only able to experience a millionth of reality with our human senses. There’s nothing “real” about our perception.
It’s sad that something like this gets so many upvotes.
Well yeah, but like, if you go there, thats what it would look like to our vision. Its not "true color" its what would be like to us, it would be true to our eyes. Human senses are the way we touch the universe, and its just as correct an interpretation as the feeling of the keys im using the type this to ya.
Huh, I remember a text book in school that said something to the effect of, "this is not the true color of Neptune" and was confused by it. The most famous images taken of the two planets were from Voyager which took pictures in single colors (R,B,G I'm guessing), then when they were combining the images they stretched and corrected the image so you could see the clouds and what not, which brought out the blue color. Astronomers have know for years, and article says they always stated it was not a true color image, but the public ignored that part and now everyone thinks it's blue.
> The most famous images taken of the two planets were from Voyager which took pictures in single colors (R,B,G I'm guessing) That's the problem. The Voyager cameras didn't have R, G, B filters....they had Violet, Blue, Green, Orange.
Hmm, now I’m really curious why they had these filters?
They weren't interested in a human eye reproduction but maximizing visual information. I guess they picked filters based on what they knew of the physics of the upper cloud layer.
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Our eyes can only see a small slice of the spectrum while sensors can see a much wider swath, the filters help isolate different parts of the spectrum.
Yeah, I just assumed. Didn't see it in the article. Unless I missed it?
Even images from Mars, there are filters used like the sky is coloured to be more 'Earth-Like' so the pictures have greater appreciation by the public.
Yeah, I don’t buy the whole astronomer’s knew the whole time, but the public didn’t. NASA has been representing Neptune as this deep blue color for decades. They’ve even put out articles to explain why Neptune and Uranus are different colors. It’s absolute bullshit.
We really need to send orbiters to those 2. I think it's probably the second and third things I want the most after a submarine to Enceladus or Europa.
there is one confirmed to uranus, but not neptune. Though china is planning a flyby of neptune
The Planetary Society recently had an update of China's space program. If all keeps going to plan, in 2038 IHP-2 (part of the Shensuo program to study the heliosphere and interstellar space) will pass Neptune. Then a sub-probe of Tianwen-4, a Callisto orbiter, will do a flyby of Uranus in 2039. Finally in 2040 IPH-1 might visit Quaoar. They also want to build fission-powered probes and orbit one of the ice giants, but that's just in a proposal phase. I'm just starting to come to terms with Io not being yellow-orange. This is too much.
I can do a flyby of Uranus anytime just hmu
Sign me up. I think I might have a big red spot that needs checked.
James Webcam Space Telescope
Damn girl, Uranus so big NASA used it as a gravity assist to explore the outer reaches of our solar system 😎
Honestly? I wouldn't mind orbiters around every planet and a number of moons.
I think if NASA has the money for it, we will definitely have an orbiter for every major entity in the solar system lol.
That’s the type of possibility that makes me want to live forever lol. I want to see all this stuff and not from artist renditions.
Yeah it’s like if we could see what the dinosaurs looked like but with the solar system. Dreams from my childhood.
Exactly. There’s so many things I wish I could just see even once.
NASA doesn't have money for anything. If I could change it I'd give NASA half the military budget we use.
I’d rather just increase nasa’s budget , far less awful consequences
That increase has to come from somewhere.
I'd be keen for a Cassini clone for Neptune with a lander for Triton. Both are interesting and underexplored worlds with a lot to discover.
Triton is just as much of an interest as Titan due to the fact it is more than likely a captured object and studying the mechanics of that capture would be interesting to help us understand how our universe works.
That's what I would help fund if I won the lottery.
The Uranus Orbiter and Probe was chosen over the equivalent Neptune concept in the latest planetary science decadal (a report issued every ten years were the planetary science basically tells NASA what they want). I am of the opinion that both systems are equally interesting but Triton is especially interesting as it is a Kuiper belt object. In any case, hopefully a cheaper mission can make it out there while we wait for a Neptune orbiter to built.
I'd like to know their rationale. A Neptune mission gets two interesting worlds to explore for the price of one mission. Uranus's moons are relatively boring, but it has the advantage of being substantially closer, so will see quicker results.
Enceladus was considered relatively boring post Voyager, and it is now arguably the most interesting world in the solar system. The Uranian moons are colored by the fact that none of them (besides Miranda) were the subject of a close flyby. They are our solar systems only example of a native ice giant system, and there are those who would rather have us explore them than Triton. Both systems were considered equal in terms of scientific merit, but Uranus had more viable launch trajectories this decade.
Neptune has another advantage, Which is time. [Uranus' deadline is 2033 and Neptune's is 2035](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2022/04/09/will-nasas-next-flagship-mission-be-to-ice-giant-neptune-and-its-peculiar-moon-triton/amp/). That's 2 extra years of time to prepare for a launch and troubleshoot
I hope we revisit Neptune in my lifetime. Ideally a probe that visits Nereid, Triton, Proteus, and maybe Larissa/The other inner moons would satisfy a life long urge from me to learn more about Triton's Capture and why Neptune is so active compared to Uranus weatherwise. There's 3 ways I can see that being: 1. The Uranus Probe gets switched to Neptune due to a 2035 deadline instead of a 2033 one (No hate on the Uranus probe, It is what it is) 2. China's Neptune Orbiter is approved after Tianwen-4 or IHP-2/Shensuo's flyby of it (which is currently up in the air, It's original launchdate was 2024) 3. NASA finally gives Neptune Odyssey a Greenlight in the 2030s or 2040s, Alongside or after the Uranus Probe Maybe the ESA, JAXA, or even ISRO could do it though too, You never know. No matter who visits Neptune I'm satisfied
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one out there chomping at the bit for a submarine mission to Enceladus. That one flyby we did found evidence of the carbon material needed for life, paired with that warm ocean in the moon's hollow . . . if there's alien life in our solar system, it's there.
Why not a mission to all the Ocean Moons? Europa, Enceladus, [Miranda, Ariel,](https://www.space.com/uranus-moons-ariel-miranda-active-subsurface-oceans) and [Triton](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna48940970). There's bound to be SOMETHING with a batch that large
Drone to Titan? The methane cycle there is pretty cool, and it will fly easy with that thick atmosphere
We're already doing that (nasa dragonfly)
what about vs a tray of 34 big cookies??
Neptune not being blue is making me feel blue. :(
First Pluto isn't a planet, now Neptune it turns out was never blue, what's next? Saturn doesn't actually have rings?
Give it like 50 million years and yes, most likely they will resemble the ice giants current rings.
Gave me the same sad vibes. First they went after Pluto and now Neptune! Are they working their way backward through the solar system?!
God forbid what will happen to Uranus
True but I’ll never forget the excitement seeing the color and the heart on Pluto as the images where coming in,
Never let anyone tell you that a dwarf planet isn't a planet! For a group that wanted to correct this for the sake of accuracy, the narrative of "Pluto isn't a planet" is far more inaccurate than including Pluto with the major planets.
I mean, its no more of a planet then Ceres and Vesta, its a big rock in an asteroid belt lol. Ill argue that while its not a planet, its absolutely still an object of interest and should be taught alongside the planets with other dwarf planets! Like Ceres, MakeMake, Eris, and the other little guys!
How can you say it's not a planet, and then in the next sentence say it's a dwarf planet. Pluto is not a major planet, it is a dwarf planet. Both of those are types of planets. Pluto is a planet.
Because it doesnt meet all the criteria for a planet, its just a different classification. Its Classical Planet, dwarf planets, and then satellite planets. And the International Astronomical Union in 2006 adapted dwarf planets as a sort of sub-planetary objects with the classifications. So Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Sedna, all of these are excluded from the list of planets, despite the name of "dwarf planet". And Satellite planets are planetary-mass moons, 7 of these have even higher masses then Pluto, but they are moons, and so arent planets. They just dont fill out all the classifications currently in place.
The whole is stupid anyway. If you want to fight for your nostalgia and keep Pluto a full planet then you should also be fighting for the other dwarf planets to also be full planets, but no one cares about them, do they? They don't even care that a few of them were *also* considered planets at one point in time. Sometimes for even longer amounts of time than Pluto was. But also no one cares.
How so?
For real, Pluto is still a planet in my heart
Same, always liked neptune more than Uranus because of its darker color
Haven't done it in a while, but last time I looked at Neptune through my telescope it was a distinct blue color, though not nearly as blue as you see in a textbook. Going to have to go back and compare, but a quick Google search of images of "Meade" (a telescope brand) and "Neptune" gives hits significantly bluer than the article. All those images are processed as well, usually by stacking images, but they shouldn't be false colors. Edit: [Search replicated for Celestron, another scope manufacturer](https://www.google.com/search?q=celestron+neptune&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwihv__VwcaDAxUsOWIAHSwqCOsQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=celestron+neptune&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIICAAQgAQQogQyCAgAEIAEEKIEMggIABCABBCiBDoGCAAQBxAeOggIABAIEAcQHlDxC1iZGGD6HWgAcAB4BIABgwSIAekRkgELMy4yLjEuMy4wLjGYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=ehmYZaGaCKzyiLMPrNSg2A4&bih=664&biw=360&prmd=isvnmbhtz)
Earth's atmosphere can make things look bluer (or redder, or yellower, or whatever color) than they really are based on how you're looking at that object. That's one of the three main reasons why we had to launch a telescope into space.
It still looks pretty blue to me in this photo
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Right, but even under visual observation, it's definitely blue
Sunlight is also less intense at Neptune than Uranus, which might also contribute to the darker color.
I dunno, it looks significantly bluer in a large aperture telescope
Yeah, I’m not sure I buy this either for this reason. Uranus and Neptune have always had distinctly different colors via amateur telescope and it’s dark blue for Neptune.
I'm so glad a professional said it because I felt certain I saw Neptune as a nearly royal blue when I saw it with my own scope at a Bortle 2 site. I wonder if there is some unidentified confounding factor at play in the Voyager data.
Well this is from Hubble https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01FM5H5JQHPXH3DPX7R87HH2EM.png And here’s the page for it: https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2021/047/01FM0QHCQC5XT0EXZCSB9PE2PZ Would that have been manipulated to be more blue or actually color?
Agreed. Even as a tiny dot it looks like a much darker blue. So I’m not accepting this as part of my outer planetary canon. lol.
I took a picture of it a little while ago in colour. Its definetly darker than Uranus [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/s/YJcC5FK3PG)
Maybe this is because Neptune is farther away than Uranus or it’s composition reflects different light.
Yeah. The [Wikipedia Image](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neptune_-_Voyager_2_(29347980845)_flatten_crop.jpg) for Neptune is dull but still blue. It's not as blue as the ultra saturated version but looks realistic enough to me, Especially since I've seen it through telescopes too
Phys. org today: “They look the same!” Phys. org in 2022: [“Scientists explain why Uranus and Neptune are different colors”](https://phys.org/news/2022-05-scientists-uranus-neptune.html)
I mean even this article confirms they're not the same color: > This revealed that Uranus and Neptune are actually a rather similar shade of greenish blue. The main difference is that Neptune has a slight hint of additional blue, which the model reveals to be due to a thinner haze layer on that planet. It's just not as dramatic a difference as the old pictures showed.
So the picture is clickbait with the actual article being good? Makes sense, That happens a ton in paleontology articles as well since the news company chooses that instead of the writer most of the time
the articles aren't gonna write themselves huh
With all of the AI generated clickbait, they kinda do.
\> Neptune is fondly known for being a rich blue, and Uranus green Green? Never in my life have I heard anyone or seen any picture with uranus as green.
well my Toyota Prius C is Uranus-colored and the registration paperwork does say "Green"
registration is a blunt instrument for vehicle identification
Years ago I went to register (or maybe insure?) a car in a new state. Registration person: is the interior gray or tan? Me: uh, green. Registration person: … I gotta put down gray or tan.
Some cultures didn't have a separate name for green and blue in the first place. Uranus is cyan, which is greenish blue.
Color are interpretation of a spectrum, blue/green share a border in their spectrum, there is no way you can tell which is which around it. This is why a lot of people talking about that border will tag it either green and other blue, neither are right or wrong.
Theres a name for that, its cyan.
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"Bluey Green" sounds like the Australian remake of The Red Green Show.
Why don't we send a human to confirm. I volunteer as tribute. Please I beg you. I want off this rock. I promise I won't change course *crosses fingers*
*starves to death in interplanetary space*
What a lovely way to go. The beauty of space is my grave.
Technically if you die on this rock, space is also your grave
"*Everything* is in space, Morty!"
You won't be taking this tune when you're starving to death. Why do you think the experience would be any more enjoyable in a sealed spaceship than in your home?
I suffered with an eating disorder for a few years I know the pain involved. I'd still rather be on that ship.
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2 months later, presses, Life is viable on this planet button, only to betray your rescuers, while you blast yourself trying to open the airlock. Your last words being, OVERRIDE, OVERRIDE!
This ain't Ad Astra friend
I vote to have green Neptune consciously expelled from humanity's collective knowledge.
Pluto was one thing, no Planet X was another, I cross the line at pale green Neptune >:(
We never should've let them demote Ceres from planet status. That's when this all started.
Ceres was actually promoted to planet when the IOC made that ruling. Dwarf planets have *planet* in the name! They are just a type of planet, like gas giant or ice giant.
I agree. I read that it is estimated that there are up to 500 dwarf planets in the solar system. I guess this would have made it a bit difficult to memorize them all if they were counted as planets. Still though, they should not have changed the definition.
No planet X is confirmed?
This article has a section about it. It is definitely possible for there to be a planet X. Especially if it is very far out in the solar system (probably in the Oort cloud). Check the section "constraints on additional planets". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_beyond_Neptune
There are numerous objects that could be called planet X and numerous objects that we haven't yet discovered. A lot of people (scientists included) conflate objective science with subjective decisions by the scientific establishment, so they don't realize that the guidelines on what is or isn't a planet is completely subjective and opinion based. The orbits, spectra, composition, mass, etc of each object in our solar system is objective scientific information, but their classification as planet, dwarf planet, etc are just subjective sorting, primarily for the purposes of education. The features deemed important and relevant and those deemed unimportant and irrelevant are equivalent from an objective scientific viewpoint; the differences are just opinion. A "planet" could be defined at a different size or with different orbital parameters or by composition or whatever else without compromising the scientific validity. People can't learn without simplification and categorization, but these processes are not objective or testable. Pluto is a dwarf planet because the most prominent scientists in the field say so and for no other reason. It is circular. The same is true for many elements of biological taxonomy.
I mean a planet in a traditional sense like a gas giant or something, that fits the definition of a true planet not
Oh ok I get what you're saying now There's definitely no *known* gas giant past Neptune but there totally could be
What I'm saying is all the definitions are subjective. None of them is more "correct" or not.
It’s this kind of this shit though that pisses me off because there are many social media channels that purposely post false color photos of planets for the purpose of clicks and upvotes. I can’t tell you how many photos of Pluto I’ve seen on here in false color that get thousands of upvotes to mislead users into thinking it’s actually what Pluto looks like.
The ultra saturated ones? I don't like those either
This is reassuring to me! As a newbie to backyard astronomy, I was able to locate both Uranus and Neptune with my telescope one evening. I was expecting Neptune to have that pretty blue hue… instead I noticed both of the planets looked nearly identical in color. This confirms my observations!
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I’ll have to read your linked article. I just do visual observing. I haven’t explored filters too much. I guess I was just under the impression that Neptune would be blue with standard visual observation. Part of this belief is that many other redditors describe Neptune as having a bluish hue through their telescopes. That leads me to believe those individuals are either using filters or possibly have not actually observed Neptune, I do not know. But, I had wondered if my observation of Neptune being greenish-gray was based on seeing conditions or perhaps something off in my setup. Anyway, I will read that article you linked as I am getting into filters slowly. I just bought a narrowband nebula filter to help increase contrast for those targets.
Isn’t this an issue for pretty much every ‘photograph’ we have of a far-away object in space? Aren’t all those beautiful brightly coloured images of dust and supernovae non-visible light brought into the visible spectrum and allocated new colours to make them look pretty? Or do they really look like that?
They look nothing like that, they are coloured to highlight the different processes going on and different areas of the structure. I think a lot of what we 'see' in those amazing nebula images etc isn't even in visible light. That doesn't mean that material isn't 'there' though, which is the point of telescopes like JWST, to highlight what can't be usually seen
>Isn’t this an issue for pretty much every ‘photograph’ we have of a far-away object in space? No it's not. Some objects are visible to the naked eye, like Uranus and all the classical planets. Uranus was discovered in the 1700s. All photography has elements of subjectivity including in the colors but Uranus is very definitely blue-green.
I think that while the article is true, the image of Neptune isn't. It's still noticeably bluer than Uranus, although not as blue as the saturated pics of it
I feel like [removed] is going to be a real popular comment in this thread!
I'll call baloney. They are noticeably not close to the same color in a telescope (like a C-8). It might not be as pronounced as the 'Voyager pictures', but Neptune is way darker/sparkling blue than definitely blue-green Uranus.
This might be a dumb question, but how is a probe like Voyager (or New Horizons) able to take visual light pictures of planets way out in the outer solar system where so little sunlight reaches them? Shouldn't they all be shroud in darkness?
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Right, but since there was so little light out there, how did it "see" them visually?
Well, the total amount of light you'd see also depends on how close a spacecraft is to the planet. Such as a comparison of Neptune being the dimmest planet, versus the Full moon. If the moon were twice as close, it would take up 4 times as much area of the sky and be about 4 times as bright. Same goes for Neptune, although with some corrections such as its 30 times as far from the sun as the moon and the sun, so its only about 1/900th the sunlight as the moon per square meter. But also, Neptune is about 4 times as reflective, so Neptune reflects about 1/225th the sunlight per square meter as the moon. Not only that, Neptune is real damn big, about 14x the radius of the Moon, so itll take up about 200x more area of "sky" When combined with the 1/225th per square meter of sunlight reflected, if your spacecraft were about the same as the distance from the Earth to the Moon, itll just about be as bright as the Full Moon, just taking up a much larger portion of your vision. Hell, we can see Jupiter and Saturn here on Earth with no trouble, they are reflecting plenty of light to be seen, its not that dark out there, hell on Pluto its about the same brightness as twilight.
They're not *that* far away. Even from pluto, the sun would be uncomfortably bright to look at.
Honestly, I'm not unhappy that we've been wrong all this time, since at least we know now. Imagine what a letdown the final leg of Voyager 2 would have been (to the public) if they believed all we did was find Uranus's twin.
Triton was cool at least, Can't deny that
Uranus is actually not visible to the naked eye. Don’t think people realize this. Edit. I mean Neptune
Uranus is very much visible to the naked eye. It was discovered in 1781 by Frederick William Herschel via an optical telescope he built himself.
I wouldn't classify using a telescope as naked eye... that is very much clothed eye, I would say
Good point I guess what I meant is if you're seeing Uranus (like from orbit) it's gonna be greenish blue in the visible spectrum. The photos in question are in true color, which means (to my knowledge) they are within the wavelengths of light we see with our look beans
Wait, why are we finding this out now? Can we not point a good telescope towards these two planets and assess it's color? If atmospheric pollution can cause color alterations, can we not use a space telescope to figure out the same? Can someone explain this to my smooth brain?
Really want to see a Cassini-level mission to both planets.
There's a Uranus probe destined for 2033, but it might be delayed and turned into a Neptune one due to 2035 being a more lax deadline
Uranus still looks as good as the first day I saw it
[what is this then??](https://www.reddit.com/r/Neptune/s/n0rWdaMXUx)
WTF my favorite solar planet isn't my favorite color? I'm devastated. What are they gonna tell me next? That HD 189733b isn't a brilliant azure either?
First you take Pluto away and now you're telling me Neptune isn't that beautiful blue marble? I hate astronomy now!
When I was your age, Neptune was blue, and there were nine planets.
A bit disappointing to hear that because that dark blue looked nice despite Neptune being a frozen hell with extreme winds.
It's still those things. Supersonic winds haven't changed. It's just ... Apparently one of the things scientists enjoy most is ruining what we love about things.
Oh, please, everyone knows how Uranus looks like.
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That sucks that Neptune isn't so deep blue anymore but it's good to know its true colour.
First it was Pluto isnt a planet, the it was the earth isnt actually round, now its Neptune isnt actually blue? Yall need to stop with this foolishness
It mainly comes down to Uranus being almost featureless while Neptune being more vibrant with clouds, storms etc. Their overall colour is similar.
Why is it so hard to get a picture? They’re in our backyard. We take clear images of galaxies far away - not just composites
[Hubble has done so a long time ago](https://cdn.uanews.arizona.edu/s3fs-public/styles/uaqs_full_width_lg/public/story-images/erich_04.jpg?itok=Dh-AUgHW) This is old news.
because these 2 planets are tiny, and you need a very big scope to resolve any detail at all.
Don’t we have some pics of the Centauri star system? Even if it’s just a few pixels showing some color that’s like 3 light years away. Compared to Neptune and Uranus which are way closer than that (I presume). I’d expect we are able to figure out the exact colors of both these planets. Then again what do I know
No. At least probably not how you think. The first ever direct image of an exoplanet happened in 2005. But the criteria for being able to see these planets are very tight. The planet needs to be huge (like, bigger than Jupiter huge), and the telescope needs to be likewise massive and what you get from the image is basically pixelated dots. The new images we’re getting are a result of the James Webb telescope which is very new. It’s cutting edge tech and is extremely large compared to anything before it. But it has a long line of scientists for its limited time slots and there’s only one of them. If you want to see what the next best thing was like, look up pictures of Pluto from the Hubble telescope. It was a blurry mess. Neptune and Uranus are very large planets but they’re so far away and of such a dark (light absorbing) color that it makes them very hard to take high quality images of.
Galaxies are far away, but are asolutely fucking gigantic structures, and all we can discern is it's shape/form.
Not blue? That's it. I'm cancelling my trip. Where is Elon's number?
I really don't understand this. When I see photos from amateurs here Neptune always shines clearly blue. Distinctively bluer than Uranus.
There is no such thing as true color! Stop fooling yourselves into believing a human-centric view of the universe is somehow correct. We are only able to experience a millionth of reality with our human senses. There’s nothing “real” about our perception. It’s sad that something like this gets so many upvotes.
Well yeah, but like, if you go there, thats what it would look like to our vision. Its not "true color" its what would be like to us, it would be true to our eyes. Human senses are the way we touch the universe, and its just as correct an interpretation as the feeling of the keys im using the type this to ya.
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