Paint it black: behind the James Webb Space Telescope’s signature color

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has to stay super cool to observe the cosmos. How does it beat the heat? Black paint.  As the agency explained in its new YouTube series “Elements of Webb,” the James Webb Space Telescope‘s radiator is painted black to absorb heat. Just like how black asphalt gets hot in the … Read more

Uranus And Neptune Aren’t The Same Color. A New Study Could Finally Explain Why

Uranus and Neptune are the most twin-like of all the planets in the Solar System. They are almost the same size and mass, have similar compositions and structures, even similar rotation rates.   Which makes one glaring difference quite perplexing. Neptune is a fetching shade of azure, with visible swirling storms. Uranus is more of … Read more

This Adorable Jumping Spider Can’t Actually See Its Own Most Vivid Color

Jumping spiders may have exceptional eyes, but one adorable species seems to have a curious lack in the vision department. New experimental evidence suggests that a jumping spider called Saitis barbipes has no photoreceptors capable of perceiving the color red.   What makes this so strange is that S. barbipes – like many jumping spiders … Read more

‘Orion’s Fireplace’: Flame Nebula is ablaze with color in stunning new image

The Flame Nebula rings in the New Year from the constellation Orion in a blazing new photo from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).  In the new telescope view, the nebula, nicknamed “Orion’s fireplace,” looks like an inferno, but it’s actually a colorful cloud of interstellar dust and gas and a nursery for new star formation. … Read more

The Weirdest Eyes in The Animal Kingdom See a World We Can’t Imagine

When you view the world a certain way, it’s easy to forget not everyone has the same vision. We do mean that quite literally. Aside from philosophical considerations of the subjective experience of color, different organisms have evolved to view the world differently, with eye structures and configurations optimized for various kinds of existence.   … Read more