My Hair Is Cosmic Latte!

According to a recent study, the background color of this very page is the color of the universe. What, you ask? Well:

The universe is beige
    Cosmic Latte is the color of the universe, according to a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: constraints on cosmic star-formation history from the cosmic spectrum, published in 2002. In this paper, they reported that their survey of the color of all light in the universe added up to a slightly beige white. The survey included more than 200,000 galaxies, and measured the spectral range of the light from a large volume of the universe. The hexadecimal RGB value for Cosmic Latte is #FFF8E7.
    In a Washington Post article, the color was displayed. Glazebrook jokingly said that he was looking for suggestions for a name for the new color. Several people who read the article sent in suggestions. Cosmic Latte was selected.

This reminds me of a family story. My little sister grew up with amazingly bright red, almost orange-red hair. It’s fading now, but when she was young it was striking, brilliant and very hard not to notice. Adults would croon about what beautiful red hair! Often.

Well, even when very young, my sister got pretty tired of this. Having strangers fondle your hair is no picnic. I sympathized. Being my sister was like being constantly subjected to the cast of a Fellini movie. Why are these people touching my hair?

So, one day, when some old lady gushed about her hair, my sister burst out with a retort: My hair is black!

It was an act of defiance. As a statement, it was untrue, but there was poetry in it’s untruth, and (as fuzzy-headed romantics like to say) it contained a certain truth to it, too.

As for me, my hair color is, well, cosmic latte. Well, a bit darker. (The skin on the back of my hand is more like cosmic latte. I should know. It is, after all, the back of my hand.) That is: nothing special.

Still, when thinking of the color of the universe, I think black.

twv

The reasons for making this a special page? Well, just experimentin’.