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WASHINGTON D.C. - Researchers at Johns Hopkins University today announced the color of the universe. Unfortunately, it doesn't go with anything .
The universe, once a stunning, radiant blue color, has in its middle years settled into rather dreary green hue not unlike that used on household appliances during the 1970s.
"The color is quite close to the standard shade of pale turquoise, although it's a few percent greener," says Karl Glazebrook, who is largely responsible for all this.
Glazebrook's claim is, as you might guess, not a typical scientific finding. But he presented it here, nonetheless, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Issued with a press statement regarding this newly determined greenness of our entire known surroundings was a mundane, printed color patch, a square of green designed, it seemed, to explain the complex science findings to Martha Stewart.
Accompanying the universal Home Depot-like color chip were some behind-the-scenes worries: We're not sure the green will look just right in each printed version or on each computer, public relations officials muttered.
"The irregularities of modern photocopying make it tough to render it with complete accuracy, but we offer the following sample of the average color of all the light in the universe," stated one of the most unusual press releases ever submitted by astronomers. "It is, in other words, the color you would see if you could somehow view all the visible light in the universe together."
Then, printed on the press release, was the distinctly, indubitably, very green color chip, roughly one half-inch square, for reporters who had no plans to make an extra-universal trip to verify the claim. Okay, honestly? It was actually a bit pale, like a sick plant or maybe wall-to-wall carpeting that had been lying near a sunny window since the '60s.
A look at the web version of the color chip, also released by the Johns Hopkins team, revealed something much closer to blue-green or, more accurately, the sea green you might recall from your Crayola days. A very disappointing shade of green, really.
The color of the universe.
CREDIT: Karl Glazebrook, Ivan Baldry/JHU
The scientists say the official green of the universe is between medium aquamarine and pale turquoise. We predict, however, that plain old "green" is the color that will stick in the public consciousness. A green universe seems somehow more comforting than these indefinite shades being forced upon us by scientists.
We assure you -- and after double-checking this -- that science is involved here.
The bold claim resulted from a review of colors coming from 200,000 galaxies. But why, you ought to be asking by now, did it end up being green? Glazebrook and his Johns Hopkins colleague Ivan Baldry have an answer for that, too.
"From one perspective, it's surprising that it turns out to be green, because there are no greenish stars," said Glazebrook, an assistant astronomy professor. "But it's the large number of old red stars and young blue stars in the universe that gives us the green."
(Yes, mixing red and blue paint yields nothing but icky paint, which anyone with children would know. But combining red and blue light yields an entirely different result, which you've probably guessed by now.)
The whole greening of the universe became quite a topic of conversation at the four-day-long meeting here.
"I saw a woman earlier in a green dress," said one respected attendee. "But I can't find her now. She's the color of the universe." Laughter.
Others noted that green is a widely agreed upon color for aliens. Hmm. Other (agreeably bad) jokes were exchanged. This was a group of people immersed for several hours a day in complex and often incremental science findings. Hundreds of papers presented. Dozens of talks given. Stuff about cosmic dust and light curves and omegas and all that.
They could be excused for their lighthearted response to such a seemingly whimsical science finding.
Yet the study involved real data from the Australian 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey of galaxies between 2 billion and 3 billion light-years away, originally done by the Anglo-Australian Observatory.
Glazebrook and Baldry say today's announcement is just a byproduct of their real work, which was to assess theories about the history of star formation. Along the way, they also found a history to the color of the universe.
It wasn't always green.
The universe started out blue, then grew gradually greener as stars evolved and became redder, the researchers figure.
And don't get too attached to the new color. Like Martha Stewart's universe, this one will be repainted yet again. One day, the researchers say, it will be red. Sorry, no color chips available.
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