Originally posted by Rachel Lense on Bluesky:
I made this Pride flag using only NASA images and our team thought it would be cool to share on social (I work on the NASA heliophysics communications team), but it's getting all sorts of hate on the bird app and Fbook. Thought y'all might be more appreciative of it here. βΊοΈπ³οΈβππ
Cool, sure, but how many of these are actual color? I'm guessing 2 but it probably depends on definition (does contrast adjustment count if hue is retained?)
Edit - Alt text found in original post:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)#/media/File:Upperatmoslight1.jpg
Surprisingly many: white, pink, red, orange, green (probably) and yellow. (The well-known Neptune image is false color; Hubble deep-field is IR but that is redshifted so IDK, may be "real" color too.) Too bad white, pink and red are Earth's atmospheric phenomena, of which only the aurora is really space-related, and green is just a satellite photo. Still, within NASA's scope I guess, and better than "artist's impressions", which is all we have for non-solar-system bodies' surfaces; or pictures of NASA-made objects.
I guess you could say since earth is part of the solar system, the earth phenomena are space related (it's all about diversity anyway, why not include algae?). Plus what amateur astrophysicist hasn't had to deal with a cloudy night ruining a night if star gazing?
Space is 100 km away from Earth so not even the sprites are included (the aurora is). Don't confuse space Γ universe. But yes, our planet is definitely the most interesting one.