r/interestingasfuck • u/Puzzleheaded_Web5245 • 3d ago

Views of pluto through the years r/all

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u/halcyann 3d ago

"2018" is just a false color image from the same New Horizons mission

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u/frownGuy12 3d ago

False color is a misnomer. It’s light outside the visible spectrum remapped to RGB. RGB itself is false color that happens to align with the light sensitive cells in our eyes. Save for pure red, green, or blue images, all color images don’t actually match reality. An alien looking at an iPhone would see non sensical colors. 

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u/JaggedMetalOs 3d ago

False color is a misnomer.

No that's not correct, "false-color" is a widely recognized term for mapping non-visible light colors onto RGB, as opposed to "true-color" which maps visible colors to RGB in a way that closely approximates how our eyes would see the thing being captured.

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u/Yeet_Master420 3d ago

What we would see is probably closer to the bottom left image if anything

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u/Illustrious_Donkey61 3d ago

Yeah I thought false colourings planets was just to help see features better

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u/StillJustaRat 3d ago

It’s also useful for showing information about the materials present. Like photos of nebula can be configured to show hydrogen densities as red colors etc.

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u/Gravecat 3d ago

aw man :(

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u/bremsspuren 3d ago

If you turn your display brightness down.

High noon on Pluto is like a few minutes after dusk on Earth.

I guess it'd be like a grim, Northern European grey winter day, but without the damp.