Keith Devens .com

Entry 1586

Slashdot reports: "Universe Beige, not Turquoise". Space.com: Color Corrected: Johns Hopkins Researchers Say Universe Much Blander Than Before.

Two Johns Hopkins University astronomers announced in January they had averaged all the colors from the light of 200,000 galaxies and concluded that if the human eye could see this combined hue, it would be a sprightly pale green. That, they said, was the color of the universe.

But Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry said Thursday that their conclusion was wrong. They had been tripped up by flawed software that was uncovered by color engineers who checked their data.

"It is embarrassing," Glazebrook said. "But this is science. We're not like politicians. If we make mistakes, we admit them. That's how science works."