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The Cosmic Spectrum and the Color of the

Universe
By Karl Glazebrook & Ivan Baldry
What is the color of the Universe? This seemingly simple question has never been answered by astronomers
until now. It is difficult to take an accurate and complete census of all the light in the Universe.
However using the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey - a new survey of more than 200,000 galaxies which
measures the light from a large volume of the Universe - we have recently been able to try and answer this
question. We have constructed what we call "The Cosmic Spectrum", which represents all the sum of all the
energy in the local volume of the universe emitted at different optical wavelengths of light. This is what the
cosmic spectrum looks like:

This is a graph of the energy emitted in the Universe for different wavelengths of light (data here). Ultraviolet
and blue light is on the left and red light is on the right. This is constructed by adding together all the
individual spectra of the separate galaxies in the 2dF survey. The sum represents the light of all the stars (you
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can also see narrow "emission lines" from ionized gas). We believe that because the 2dF survey is so large
(reaching out several billion light years) that this spectrum is truly representative. We can also show the
cosmic spectrum this way:

Here we have put in the approximate color the eye would see at each wavelength of light (though we cannot
really see much light below about 4000 Angstroms, the near ultraviolet; and strictly, monitors cannot
accurately display monochromatic colors, the colors of the rainbow).
You can think of this as what the eye would see if we put all the light in the Universe through a prism to
produce a rainbow. The intensity of the color is in proportion to it's intensity in the Universe.
So what is the average color? i.e. the color an observer would see if they had the Universe in a box, and could
see all the light at once (and it wasn't moving, for a real observer on earth, the further away a galaxy from us
the more it is redshifted. We have de-redshifted all our light before combining).
To answer this question we must compute the average response of the human eye to these colors. How do we
express this color? The most objective way to is quote the CIE x,y values which specify the color's location in
the CIE chromaticity diagram and hence the stimulus the eye would see. Any spectrum with the same x,y
must give the same perceived color. These numbers are (0.345,0.345) and they are robust, we have calculated
them for different sub-samples of the 2dF survey and they vary insignificantly. We have even computed them
for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic survey (which will overtake 2dFGRS as the biggest redshift
survey sometime in 2002) and they are essentially the same.
But what is the actual color? Well to do this we have to make some assumptions about human vision and the
degree of general illumination. We also need to know what monitor you, the reader, are using! Of course this
is impossible, but we can make an average guess. So here are the colors:

What are all these colors? They represent the color of the universe for different white points, which represent
the adaptation of the human eye to different kinds of illumination. We will perceive different colors under
different circumstances, and the kind of spectrum that appears 'white' will vary. A common standard is 'D65',
which is close to setting daylight (in a slightly overcast sky) as white, and compared to which the universe
appears reddish. 'Illuminant E' (equal energy white point) is perhaps what you would see for white when dark
adapted. 'Illuminant A' represents indoor lighting, compared to which the Universe (and daylight) is very blue.
We also show the color with and without a gamma correction of 2.2, which is the best thing to do for display
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on typical monitors. We provide the linear file, so you can apply your own gamma if you wish.
Almost certainly you need to look at the color patches labeled 'gamma', but not all displays are the same so
your mileage may vary.

Enough talk. So what color is the Universe?

Really the answer is so close to white, it is difficult to say. That is why such a small error had such a large
effect. The most common choice for white is D65. However if one were to introduce a beam of cosmic
spectrum into a room strongly illuminated by light bulbs only (Illuminant A) it would appear very blue, as
shown above. Overall, probably Illuminant E is the most correct, for looking at the Universe from afar in dark
conditions. So our new best guess is:

BEST GUESS:

Although it's arguable that it might look more pinkish (like D65 above). Good luck if you can see the
difference between this color and white! You should be able to just see it, however if we had made the page
background black, it would be very difficult! We have had numerous suggestions for this color emailled to us.
We have a top ten, and deem the winner to be "Cosmic Latte" being caffeine biased!

A simulation of the Universe

Because of all these complexities we have decided to see for ourselves. Mark Fairchild at Munsell Color
Laboratories in Rochester, NY is working with us to make a simulation of the cosmic spectrum, they can
control light sources to give exactly the same red/green/blue eye stimulation as you would see from the
cosmic spectrum. We will then be able to view this under a variety of lighting conditions, perhaps simulating
deep space, and see for ourselves the true color of the Universe.

The real science story

Of course, our real motive for calculating the cosmic spectrum was really a lot more than producing these
pretty color pictures. The color is interesting but in fact the cosmic spectrum is rich in detail and tells us a lot
more about the history of star formation in the Universe. You may have noticed above that the cosmic
spectrum contains dark lines and bright bands, these correspond to the characteristic emission and absorption
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of different elements:

These may remind you of Fraunhofer lines in the Solar Spectrum. Exactly the same process of atomic
absorption is at work. The strength of the dark lines is determined by the temperatures of the stars contributing
to the cosmic spectrum. Older stars have cooler atmospheres and produce a different set of lines to hot young
stars. By analyzing the spectrum we can work out the relative proportions of these and try and infer what the
star-formation rate was in past ages of the Universe. The gory details of this analysis are given in Baldry,
Glazebrook, et al. 2002. A simple picture of our inferred most likely histories of star formation in the Universe
is shown here:
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All these models give the correct cosmic spectrum in the 2dF survey and all of them say that the majority of
stars in the Universe today formed more than 5 billion years ago. This of course implies that the color of the
Universe would have been different in the past when there were more hot young blue stars. In fact we can
calculate what this would be from our best fitting model. The evolution of the color from 13 billion years ago
to 7 billion years in the future looks like this under our various assumptions:

The universe started out young and blue, and grew gradually redder as the population of evolved 'red' giant
stars built up. The rate of formation of new stars has declined precipitously in the last 6 billion years due to the
decline in reserves of interstellar gas for forming new stars. As the star-formation rate continues to decline and
more stars become red giants the color of the Universe will become redder and redder. Eventually all stars will
disappear and nothing will be left but black holes. These too will eventually evaporate via the Hawking
process and nothing will be left except for old light, which will itself redden as the Universe expands forever
(in the current cosmological model).
Addendum Dec 2003. The European Southern Observatory has issued a press release about studies of galaxies
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in the young Universe which show it is indeed much bluer in the past.
Addendum Dec 2004. Here are the results of Mark Fairchild's efforts:

Acknowledgements

This work was based on the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey of which we are team members. Our work was
supported by the David & Lucille Packard Foundation. Many thanks to Mark Fairchild for helping us with our
colorimetry.

Last change: Dec 28th, 2004

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