Hubble Captures Cotton Candy Clouds
- The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located 160,000 light-years away from Earth.
- The image features wispy gas clouds that resemble brightly colored cotton candy due to the use of specialized filters on the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument.
- Hubble’s cameras can capture ultraviolet and infrared light, which are not visible to the human eye, allowing for a more comprehensive view of the galaxy.
- The colors in the image are based on the wavelengths of light that each filter allows through, with shorter wavelengths assigned blue or purple and longer wavelengths assigned red.
- While the color scheme is scientifically accurate, there are many possible color combinations that can be used to create aesthetically pleasing or insightful images.
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a sparkling cloudscape from one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors, a dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Located 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa, the Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the Milky Way’s many small satellite galaxies.
This view of dusty gas clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud is possible thanks to Hubble’s cameras, such as the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) that collected the observations for this image. WFC3 holds a variety of filters, and each lets through specific wavelengths, or colors, of light. This image combines observations made with five different filters, including some that capture ultraviolet and infrared light that the human eye cannot see.
The wispy gas clouds in this image resemble brightly colored cotton candy. When viewing such a vividly colored cosmic scene, it is natural to wonder whether the colors are ‘real’. After all, Hubble, with its 7.8-foot-wide (2.4 m) mirror and advanced scientific instruments, doesn’t bear resemblance to a typical camera! When image-processing specialists combine raw filtered data into a multi-colored image like this one, they assign a color to each filter. Visible-light observations typically correspond to the color that the filter allows through. Shorter wavelengths of light such as ultraviolet are usually assigned blue or purple, while longer wavelengths like infrared are typically red.
This color scheme closely represents reality while adding new information from the portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans cannot see. However, there are endless possible color combinations that can be employed to achieve an especially aesthetically pleasing or scientifically insightful image.
Learn how Hubble images are taken and processed.
Text credit: ESA/Hubble
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray