TheGreyPiper Because most of space is in black and white. Color is restricted mostly to earth. That's why they use all those artificial color filter thingees, to make space things look more normal.

I would go that far. T3knomanser's explanation is better. Things in space can be colorful, especially things like planets.

But yes, "color" pictures that you see of astronomical images usually have their colors added/manipulated in some way to make them "look pretty" when released to the public. For example, Jupiter does have distinct colors, but they are usually made much much more vivid by the people at agencies like NASA because that looks nicer.

Lack of colors is usually not due to things moving too fast, but its simply not worth the time on telescopes to take 3 pictures through different filters. Its much more cost and time efficient to take 1 really nice black and white image. Plus, most astronomy nowadays isnt even done at visual wavelengths, so the concept of "color" as it would apply to what the human eye sees in a picture doesnt even really apply. X-Rays or IR light can't be seen by the human eye, so its color in a picture designed to be seen by the human eye is not real.

The "would" in my first line should read "wouldnt" obviously.