#space objects

since y'all seem to like them, another image from the SPLUS survey!

“We see beautiful images released by NASA and other space agencies: ghostly nebulas giving tantalizing hints of their inner structures, leftover ruins of long-dead stellar systems, furious supernovae caught in the act of exploding and newborn stars peeking out from their dusty wombs.

Instead of just sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the light show the universe is putting on, some people feel compelled to object: But those colors are fake! You wouldn't see that nebula with your eyes! Binoculars and telescopes wouldn't reveal that supernova structure! Nothing in the universe is that shade of purple!

If one had to do a census, perhaps the most common colors in the universe are red and blue. So if you're looking at a gorgeous Hubble Space Telescope image and see lots of those two colors, it's probably close to what your unaided eye would see.

But a broad wash of green? A sprinkling of bright orange? Astrophysical mechanisms don't usually produce colors like that, so what's the deal?