Houston: Milky way after all is milky in colour for sure! Scientists have revealed that our galaxy is aptly named Milky Way as it looks white, the colour of fresh snow in the early morning.
University of Pittsburgh astronomers said their finding is significant because we are located in the middle of the Milky Way, which had previously made it difficult to accurately determine the colour of the galaxy.
Colour is a key detail of galaxies, shedding light on its history of star formation. Since we are located well within our galaxy, clouds of gas and dust obscure all but the closest regions of the galaxy from view, keeping us from directly seeing what colour our galaxy is as a whole.
“We can really only see 1,000 to 2,000 light-years in any direction — the Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across,” said study co-author Jeffrey Newman at the University of Pittsburgh. “The problem is similar to determining the overall colour of the Earth when you’re only able to tell what Pennsylvania looks like.”
To sidestep this problem, astronomers decided to look at other galaxies’ colours to figure out the hue of our own. Galaxies whose other properties closely match the Milky Way’s can likely tell us what our galaxy’s colour is. The light from the Milky Way closely matches the colour of a standard incandescent light bulb. PTI
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