Andy is the CEO, CTO and GDB (General Dogsbody) of Big Angry Dog, an independent company which produces the odd bit of software and occasionally does stuff. He has over 20 years experience in software development and has interests in science, mathematics, space technology, machine intelligence, and falling off motorbikes. He quite likes Siouxsie and the Banshees as well. He holds a degree in Physics, Space Physics & Technology from Leicester University. Andy maintains a software & technology blog called the Big Angry Blog.
Cosmic Latte is the name given to the average color of universe, which I came across recently on Nasa's Astronomy Picture of the Day. I wondered, rather pointlessly perhaps, what would its RGB code value be?
Back in 2002, after computationally averaging the light emitted by 200,000 galaxies, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University proudly announced that the result was... err, green. Not the color you would usually expect of a latte.
In case you're wondering what kind of putrid coffee the staff at Johns Hopkins University have to endure, they quickly realized they had made a mistake, but only after a number of major news organizations had published various interpretations of the sea-green color they had erroneously calculated. In fact, a faulty algorithm in the software they were using had given them the wrong answer.
After correcting the mistake, the true color of the universe was revealed to be a glorious beige. Without further ado, here it is:
A bit of right-clickery and a quick paste into a graphics package reveals the RGB hex value to be 0xFFF8E6, thus satisfying my own curiosity. Paint manufacturers take note—cosmic latte is the new magnolia!
At the time, a contest to name the color was held by the researchers, and after the suggestions cappuccino cosmico and big bang buff received the most votes, cosmic latte was duly declared the winner instead—presumably because the judges just thought it sounded better.
Although a light beige today, the average color of the universe would have been blue in the distant past, and will gradually change to red as the stars continue to cool and the universe heads towards its inexorable heat death. Fortunately this is a long way off, some 1 to 10 trillion years by some estimates. So we're OK just yet.
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