Scientists Have Finally Figured Out The Exact Colour Of The Universe

We could easily have imagined it being midnight blue, dark red, or a mysterious shade of green…but it isn’t any of these! A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University performed a study that involved combining all the light emitted by our universe’s various stars, planets, and galaxies. The goal: to find out its dominant colour.

And according to scientists, this colour is…beige! But not just any beige. The exact colour is #FFF8E7, called ‘cosmic latte.’ This shade looks a bit off-white (or the colour of a latte) and has shattered the 2001 theory that posited that the universe’s colour was a shade of light green.

A changing colour

Astronomers say that this beige colour is a result of light emitted by all the different galaxies. This light traveled several billion light-years before reaching us, and tends toward the purest white on the spectrum.

So, why exactly is the universe beige? The experts say that it’s due to the fact that the light we are perceiving has been emitted by stars that are still ‘young' (and thus still releasing the blue light of new stars). As they age, they grow colder, becoming red. Over time, as the stars grow slowly dimmer, the colour of our universe will shift towards warmer colours.

Check out the video above to see the true colour of the universe for yourself!