How Do Space Pictures Get So Pretty?
Photoshop, of course.
Space pictures weren't always so pretty. David Malin, a scientist at a telescope facility in Australia, did the pioneering work in color visualization more than 20 years ago. He figured out how to use black-and-white photographic film and color filters to create full-color visualizations. The modern master of the field is Zoltan Levay, who works on images sent down from the Hubble.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Robert Hurt of the Spitzer Science Center and Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
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Daniel Engber (@danengber) is a columnist for Slate. Send him an email at danengber@yahoo.com.
Photograph from the Hubble telescope by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team.