WHAT IS “COSMIC LATTE”?

Cosmic Latte is the average color of the universe.

I stumbled across “cosmic latte” a few years ago, when I learned about a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University who gathered to brainstorm a new name for the average color the universe. This was after discovering that the universe was not a pale matcha green (as previously thought) but instead a milky, coffee-colored beige.

I know what you’re thinking: isn’t the universe black? Let me explain. The “average” color describes the culmination of light from over 200,000 galaxies that, when combined, average to a light shade of cream.

The researchers tossed around ideas like Cappuccino Cosmico, Cosmic Cream, Skyvory, and Big Bang Buff. It wasn’t until one researcher was reading the paper in a coffeeshop that he noticed the color of the universe matched the frothy latte before him. And so: Cosmic Latte was born. (An added bonus that won over the voters: latteo means ‘milky’ in Italian, Galileo’s native language.)

Oh, and just scientists being scientists, they assigned a hex-triplet value to the official color, so that it could show up virtually: #FFF8E7. Our brand's light, creamy beige is, in fact, the exact and official shade of the average color of the universe.