You’re sitting there, maybe bored or just curious, and you type show me a picture of space into a search bar. Seconds later, your screen explodes with neon purples, deep magentas, and golden clouds that look like they were painted by someone on a serious creative binge. It’s breathtaking. It’s also, technically, a bit of a lie. Well, "lie" is a harsh word. Let's call it a translation.
Space is mostly black. It’s empty. But the images we obsess over—the ones from Hubble or the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—are carefully constructed data visualizations. When you ask to see a photo of the cosmos, you aren't just looking at a snapshot taken with a giant iPhone. You are looking at a map of invisible forces.
The color of things you can't see
Most people assume that if they hopped in a starship and flew to the Pillars of Creation, they’d see those towering green and red clouds exactly as they appear on a NASA poster. Honestly? You’d probably be disappointed.
Human eyes are remarkably limited. We see a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum called "visible light." But the universe is screaming in frequencies we can’t perceive: X-rays, gamma rays, and especially infrared. The James Webb Space Telescope, for instance, is an infrared observatory. It doesn’t "see" colors. It sees heat signatures and light stretched out by the expansion of the universe.
So, how do we get those gorgeous photos?
Scientists use a process called representative color. It’s basically "painting by numbers" but with physics. They take data from different filters—say, one that captures sulfur, one for hydrogen, and one for oxygen—and assign them colors we can see. Typically, they follow the "chromatic ordering" rule. Shorter wavelengths get blue, medium get green, and the longest get red.
It’s not fake. It’s just translated so our puny primate brains can understand the chemical makeup of a nebula. When you want someone to show me a picture of space, you’re really asking for a visual translation of cosmic chemistry.
The Hubble Palette vs. The Real World
For decades, the "Hubble Palette" defined our aesthetic for the universe. It made everything look like a moody, underwater forest. This specific layering—assigning Oxygen III to blue, Hydrogen-alpha to green, and Sulfur II to red—allowed astronomers to see exactly where one gas ended and another began.
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If you looked at these same objects through a high-end backyard telescope, you’d mostly see "faint fuzzies." Grayish, ghostly smudges. Why? Because our eyes aren't sensitive enough to detect color in low-light conditions. Our rods take over from our cones, and color disappears. The camera, however, can sit and stare for hours, drinking in photons until the colors bleed through.
Why we are obsessed with the "Deep Field"
In 1995, Robert Williams, then the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, did something people thought was kind of nuts. He pointed the Hubble at a patch of sky near the Big Dipper that looked... empty. Just a black hole of nothingness.
For ten days, the telescope stared at the dark.
When the data came back, it wasn't dark. It was crowded. That tiny sliver of "nothing" contained over 3,000 galaxies. This became the Hubble Deep Field. It changed everything. It proved that no matter where you look, the universe is packed to the rafters with stuff.
Whenever you ask a voice assistant or a search engine to show me a picture of space, you’re likely to see the modern version of this: the JWST First Deep Field (SMACS 0723). It’s the one with the "warped" looking galaxies. Those aren't glitches in the lens. That’s gravitational lensing. Mass is literally bending light, acting like a cosmic magnifying glass. You are seeing gravity.
The "True Color" debate
There is a subset of space enthusiasts who get really worked up about "true color" photography. They want to know what it would look like if they were standing right there.
Mars is a great example.
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Depending on how a rover like Perseverance processes an image, Mars can look like a dusty butterscotch color or a deep, blood red. NASA often adjusts the white balance so the rocks look like they would under Earth’s lighting conditions. Why? Because it helps geologists identify minerals. If you’re used to seeing a certain type of basalt in the Nevada desert, you want to see it in that same "light" on Mars to make a match.
So, "true" is subjective. Is it true to the sensor? True to the human eye? Or true to the science?
Space isn't actually empty
One of the biggest misconceptions when you look at a photo of a nebula is that it’s a thick, soupy cloud. If you were inside a nebula, you might not even know it. They are incredibly diffuse.
A "cloud" in space is often a better vacuum than anything we can create in a lab on Earth. It only looks dense because you’re looking through light-years of it. Think of it like fog. When you’re standing in it, you can see your hand in front of your face. But when you look at a fog bank from a mile away, it looks like a solid wall.
How to find the "real" pictures
If you’re tired of the over-saturated stuff you see on social media, there are ways to see the raw data. The Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) is where the pros go. It’s public. You can literally download the same files the scientists use.
But fair warning: they are boring.
They are black-and-white FITS files. To make them look like "space," you need software like FITS Liberator or Photoshop. You have to do the stretching and the leveling yourself. This is where the art meets the science. Image processors like Judy Schmidt or many of the specialists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory spend weeks deciding how to stretch the contrast to highlight a specific shockwave or a birthing star.
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Why the spikes?
Notice how stars in JWST images have eight points, while Hubble stars have four?
Those are "diffraction spikes." They aren't actually part of the star. They are caused by the light bending around the internal support structures of the telescope. In JWST's case, it's a combination of the hexagonal mirrors and the struts holding the secondary mirror. People love them now—they've become a "brand" for JWST—but they are technically an optical artifact. A "perfect" image wouldn't have them.
Making sense of the scale
It is almost impossible to grasp the size of what you’re looking at in a space photo. Take the Andromeda Galaxy. In most photos, it looks like a small, glowing oval. In reality, Andromeda is huge. If it were bright enough for our eyes to see clearly, it would appear six times wider than the full moon in our night sky.
We are just blind to the scale because it’s so faint.
When you ask to show me a picture of space, you are looking at a compressed version of eternity. The light from some of those galaxies has been traveling for 13 billion years. You aren't just looking across distance; you are looking back in time. The star you’re admiring might have exploded before the Earth even formed.
Your next steps for cosmic viewing
If you want to move beyond just looking at random JPEGs, here is how you can actually engage with space imagery like an expert:
- Check the Captions: Always look for the "Credit" or "Description" on NASA or ESA websites. It will tell you if the image is "Visible," "Infrared," or "False Color." If it says "Compass and Scale," look at the little bar at the bottom. It will often show you a line representing a few light-years.
- Use WorldWide Telescope: This is a free tool (worldwidetelescope.org) that acts like a virtual observatory. It allows you to cross-fade between different wavelengths—switch from visible light to X-ray and see how the "shape" of the universe changes.
- Follow the "Raw" Feeds: Look for the raw image galleries from the Mars rovers or the Juno mission at Jupiter. These are unprocessed, grainy, and often weirdly framed, but they are the closest you will get to "being there" without any artistic interference.
- Learn the chemical signatures: Next time you see a bright green glow in a nebula photo, remember that’s usually Oxygen. Red is often Hydrogen. Blue is frequently hot, young stars or reflected starlight.
The next time you see a stunning image of a galaxy, don't just think "that’s pretty." Think about the fact that you’re looking at a data-driven map of a place so vast it defies human language. The colors might be assigned by a computer, but the structures they reveal are the very scaffolding of our existence. Space isn't just a picture; it's a history book written in light.