Colours O'IRIS

I'm the NASA IRIS (the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) mission mascot. Now, you might want to know I got here.

Well, when I was little, I lived in Florida with my parents, brothers, and sisters. But I was different from them. My family was red and brown, but I was green and blue. I made a loud high pitched cry, while they had harsh brief shouts. The other chicks laughed at me, and wouldn't play with me. They said that my tail got in the way, and that my beak was too pointy. I'm older now and understand that it's hard for fowl to accept that everyone can be different colors.

Here's my story: I was colorful and I wasn't having fun. I wanted to be able to play with the other drab chicks, and to finally feel like I fit in. I wanted to feel like my family loved me, and I didn't want to be teased anymore. So I ran away. It wasn't the brightest idea, but I was a very lucky peacock, and it all worked out. I walked for a long time. It seemed like days had passed, but in reality I had only walked a few blocks. Luckily for me, stumbling along the sidewalk, I ran into NASA's IRIS scientist Eric Ianson. He was extremely surprised to see a peacock in the middle of the city, but he stooped down to talk to me. I told him about my family, and told him that I was running away from home.

He told me not to be sad, that being colorful was great. In fact, he was a scientist who studied the Sun by looking at its colors! Eric adopted me. He's taken care of me, and taught me mountains. He told me that my old family were all pheasants, and that I was a peacock. That's why I was so different. He said each of my feathers has thousands of little flat branches on it. Those branches have little dents in them, and the dents are filled with oils. When light shines on my feathers, people see bursts of glimmering colors!

That's how I came to love colors and that's also how I got my name! Eric took me back to NASA, in Washington DC, with him. I've learned all about the IRIS mission to study the Sun, and how colors have secrets inside them that tell us about what's happening on the Sun. I've decided that I should share my love for colors with everyone!

Like my page on facebook, check out my blog, or follow me on twitter to learn about the IRIS mission, and learn cool new science facts!