Cameras aboard spacecraft like New Horizons and Cassini take images using filters that isolate different wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum. Some, like red and blue, capture light the human eye can see. Others, like ultraviolet and infrared, capture light it can't. All the images arrive to Earth as black-and-white frames, and then are assigned colors digitally and compiled into a composite. The trouble is, it's not always clear whether an image you see floating around online is true color (showing visible light) or false color (showing invisible light). They can even be a mixture between the two. "When NASA releases images that are 'false color' because it shows something interesting about the atmosphere, I end up wincing a little," Benson says, "because people who see those might think that's what it really looks like." https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-space-actually-looks-like-human-eye/