What is the color of the sun?
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The color of the sun is white. The sun emits all colors of the rainbow in approximately equal amounts and we call this combination white. That is w...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6080744

The sun is not yellow or orange as we see in books and movies. It emits all the colours in the visible spectrum (also in other spectrums as well) making it white!

  • angrystego@lemmy.world
    78·
    1 year ago

    It is white when seen from space. Here on Earth, the atmosphere disperses the blue part of the spectrum so that the blue sunlight comes to our eyes from all directions, making the sky blue. Without the blue light, the sun appears more yellow. So the color depends on your point of view :)

      • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        Yep the atmosphere is transparent to all colors of light except blue. It doesn’t absorb blue light but it does get scattered. That’s why no matter where you look in the sky, you see blue. Because the gasses there are scattering blue light in all directions, including toward you.

          • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Good question. No idea. If higher frequency correlates with more scattering, then UV should also be scattered, right? Or is it something about blue visible light being just right for our mix of gases? Interesting question since that mix has changed over time. Perhaps the sky was another color during life’s early years. Is that why they’re called the Cyanobacteria? Because they turned the sky blue?

            • vector_zero@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 year ago

              My understanding is that higher frequency == more refraction, visible or not. So in theory, x and gamma radiation should also experience more refraction. Though I wonder at what point (it any) something too high energy can somehow "pierce" through a medium rather than refracting.