Saturday Morning Confusion!

 For decades, images taken of Neptune have looked like the planet has a deep blue hue, while Uranus seemed more green. 

However, these two ice giants may actually look more similar to each other than astronomers previously believed. 

According to a study published on January 5 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, our solar system’s furthest planets’ true colours could both be similar pale shades of greenish blue. 

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NASA’s Voyager 2 mission remains the only flyby of both ice giants conducted by a spacecraft. 

It gave us the first detailed images of these far-flung planets. 

Voyager 2 conducted a flyby of Uranus in 1986, and the images revealed a planet with a more pale cyan or blue colour. 

The vessel flew by Neptune in 1989 and the imagery showed a planet with a rich blue color.

However, astronomers have long understood that most modern images of both planets don’t accurately reflect their true colours. 

Voyager 2 captured images of each planet in separate colors and these single-color images were then put together to make composites. 

These composite images were not always accurately balanced, particularly for the planet Neptune which was believed to appear too blue. 

The contrast on the early Voyager images of Neptune was also strongly enhanced to better reveal the clouds and winds of the planet. 

Meanwhile... (as I found out during my check-up yesterday...) 'Myanus' has remained just about the same!

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