The Milky Way Project Talk

The Meaning of Blue, Red and Green in MWP

  • ttfnrob by ttfnrob admin, scientist

    BLUE: Spitzer/IRAC 4.5 µm emission. Primarily stars, but also sometimes shows up in shocked or ionized gas.

    GREEN: Spitzer/IRAC 8.0 µm emission. Primarily emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), complex organic molecules (actually an ingredient in Earthly smog!) that fluoresce strongly when exposed to ultraviolet radation. Also some bright stars and young stellar objects show up here, and in the more energetic bubbles we get 8 µm emission from heated, small dust grains trapped in the ionization regions.

    RED: Spitzer/MIPS 24 µm emission. Primarily warm dust, either inside ionization regions (the bubbles) or in discs/envelopes surrounding young stellar objects. Stars inside dark nebulae that appear red are very likely protostars or similar young stellar objects. Also some supernova remnants and planetary nebulae will show up in red, but these probably won't have the surrounding shell of green emission so they look a bit different from the bubbles.

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  • ConnieM87 by ConnieM87

    thanks for posting this. I just a little bit ago posted asking what the colors mean.

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  • curiousepic by curiousepic

    Do the stars have different colors in this spectra, or do non white/blue stars have ISM/dust in between us and them?

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  • curiousepic by curiousepic

    Forgive me, my question is primarily answered in your categories.

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  • Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

    A lot of people have, like me, problems with some shades of red and green. Mostly I have no trouble, but with some very fuzzy objects, I can't say if it's a red object or a loose green knot.

    It would be great if I could switch blue and red colors to make sure I'm seeing the color I think I'm seeing. Could you implement that?

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  • delete_595333fc by delete_595333fc

    "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)"

    This is a really somewhat foolish question, but do those have anything to do with smelling them? I had a weird image pop into my mind, there...

    And in agreeing with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, it would be really helpful for that segment of the population who have trouble with red/green colors. I know a person who is red/green colorblind who seemed to be interested in this kind of thing, and he's usually pretty good at distinguishing them, but a filter would be an added bonus. 😃

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  • masla1 by masla1

    My 13 year old son is severely colorblind. He likes to look over my shoulder at the Moon Zoo crater bubbles I draw but he honestly can't distinguish the green and red here. It's a shame. He has a very keen eye for patterns.

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  • ttfnrob by ttfnrob admin, scientist in response to masla1's comment.

    masla1
    My 13 year old son is severely colorblind. He likes to look over my shoulder at the Moon Zoo crater bubbles I draw but he honestly can't distinguish the green and red here. It's a shame. He has a very keen eye for patterns.

    We've been looking into ways to make future MWP interfaces more accessible to colourblind people. In the future we could add the ability to rotate the colours in an image so that, for example, you can view them as blue/yellow/red rather than red/green/blue - or something similar. I'm sorry that your son cannot take part at present. I would encourage him to check out our whole list of (mostly colourblind-friendly) projects at http://www.zooniverse.org

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  • aarn321 by aarn321

    ah ok, knowing that I realized I've seen quite a few protostars in the pics I've been through. It seems infant stars are quite common.

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