Banned
Remember as a child coloring the sun deep yellow ?
Ask most adults what color is the sun; answer.....YELLOW !
I remember the Sun being yellow. For several years I have noticed it's always bright white !
When children are asked what color the sun is they answer white.
Has there been a change?
Moderator
The sun has a broad spectrum of emissions, with several emission lines, which I will not go into detail (unless necessary) and it peaks around 500 nm which would be yellowish.
On this website the BA gives you info on the color of stars and the sun and even a link to a solar spectrum.
From this website you get some more information, e.g.
AFAIK the sun has not changed color lately, although it did through her 4.5 billion years. The spectrum is not changing.On Earth the sun looks mostly white, with a slight yellowish cast:
1. The sun's actual light is mostly white, with a little yellow.
2. The atmosphere scatters away some of the blue light (as you mentioned in your question). This makes it more yellow.
3. The light is so intense it saturates even the blue receptors in your your eye, making it appear more white. (This is why you SHOULD NOT look directly at the sun!!)
4. Finally, it is surrounded by the blue appearance of the sky, giving it a slightly yellowish tint due to contrast effects.
There was also another thread which discusses the color of the sun, related to Phil's book.
That's all for now folk!
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Order of Kilopi
I hope to conduct a survey soon in a couple of classes. My guess is yellow will win out, but who knows?Originally Posted by The Saint
There are numerous false statements made that confuse the issue. Some say it is yellow-orange, H-R shows it yellow (along with most OBAFGKM charts). Some BB calculators show it white while one site claims it is pinkish peach .Has there been a change?
Here is another thread regarding the sun's color. For a more cornball approach....try here .
FWIW, I get a 5850K blackbody curve that matches the "smooth" portion of the sun's emission (IR segments). I suspect the 5770K value is based on a value to produce the total emission energy.
The BB peak at 5850K is 496.2nm which is cyan in color. The actual peak is in the blue and there are two of them, both exceed the BB profile. [I am not sure why but I suspect the corona may have something to do with it.]
Established Member
If you look at the sun when it's the brightest, not only will you hurt your eyes, but it tends to be more white than anything else. Look at it when it's climbing or on its way down, it looks more yellow. As it rises or sets, orange to red.
I do believe the subject came up in the BA's book, but I don't have it handy.
Order of Kilopi
Yeah, usually the question relates to how it looks from down here, under the atmosphere etc. George is trying to answer the question from a vantage point above the atmosphere.
Probably, the main thing influencing the answer is, when you can look at it without some sort of pain (when it's lower, through a haze), it does look yellow.
Order of Kilopi
Thanks 371W :wink: I did not clairifiy it properly, though usually I do. Most of the astronomy sites address the sun's color as a they would a star being observed from space. We loose nearly all the violet and considerable amounts of blue and green due to our atmosphere. The scattering producing the blue sky is only part of the loss. The difference in spectrum is quite interesting. Here is a rough graph I did....Yeah, usually the question relates to how it looks from down here, under the atmosphere etc. George is trying to answer the question from a vantage point above the atmosphere.
[edit- needs an AM2 graph]Here is the spectrum after the atmosphere bleaches out some of the colors...
Do you really see it as yellow? I see it as white. I spread my fingers and oscillate both hands to reduce the pain to get white. It doesn't appear yellow till it gets close to the horizon on non-dusty days.
Established Member
I think that when you are a little kid, you have a set of crayons with about 8 colors - black, brown, yellow, red, blue, green, purple,orange.
Given those choices, yellow is going to win almost every time. Even with a white crayon, the paper was usually white, so it would not show up. Once ingrained, it won't change unless something forces it to. Something like specific education or an art class.
If you gave me a box of crayons today, I would select yellow. Not because it accurately depicts the visual color of the sun, but because it is the traditional color for it.
Tree trunks would be brown even though they are really more like a dark gray mostly. The street would be black even though an asphalt road is usually a light gray unless freshly poured.
Order of Kilopi
Yellow is also visual shorthand for "radiating warmth", as is a set of glowing rays and a benevolent smiling face. All of these conventions are common in cartoons, and since it's uncomfortable to look at the real sun kids will naturally try to reproduce what they've seen in picture books.
Grant Hutchison
Established Member
Well, I was responding to the OP, actually. I guess that's what I get for loading a bunch of threads in tabs, then going to make lunch before responding.Yeah, usually the question relates to how it looks from down here, under the atmosphere etc. George is trying to answer the question from a vantage point above the atmosphere.
Probably, the main thing influencing the answer is, when you can look at it without some sort of pain (when it's lower, through a haze), it does look yellow.ops:
Order of Kilopi
That's kinda what I meant.Do you really see it as yellow? I see it as white. I spread my fingers and oscillate both hands to reduce the pain to get white. It doesn't appear yellow till it gets close to the horizon on non-dusty days.
On the way home last night, I had a view of the sun, and it looked distinctly yellow, maybe with a redish tinge towards the edges. Later, I asked my daughter what color she thought it was, she said "orange".
O no, I agree with you. That's surely the context of the OP.Well, I was responding to the OP, actually. I guess that's what I get for loading a bunch of threads in tabs, then going to make lunch before responding.Yeah, usually the question relates to how it looks from down here, under the atmosphere etc. George is trying to answer the question from a vantage point above the atmosphere.
Probably, the main thing influencing the answer is, when you can look at it without some sort of pain (when it's lower, through a haze), it does look yellow.
Order of Kilopi
Ah, so 'colour' = 'what crayon kids will use when they draw the Sun'?
or maybe 'colour' = 'what a random selection of people, of various ages and sexes/genders, living in various parts of the US, will answer when you ask them "what colour is the Sun?"'?
or maybe 'colour' = 'the perception that adult specimens of the critter Homo sap. say when shown a bright light whose spectrum is a 'line' with wavelength corresponding to the max in the energy/wavelength spectrum of the Sun, as detected on a clear day when the Sun is directly overhead'?
If we don't agree what the key term in the OP's question is (objectively, if possible), why could we expect to reach an answer? #-o
Order of Kilopi
Somehow, I did not get that third one from the OP at all
Banned
Has the color of the sun changed?
I dunno, lemme check...
YEOW!!! That hurts!
Order of Kilopi
I wonder how this varys with culture. Japan even has a red sun on their national flag - "land of the rising sun", I suppose. Do they have the same sense with red as we do with yellow?
Nereid, surely crayons are a factor. You might enjoy the ultimate solution for the yellow sun.
Order of Kilopi
Maybe air pollution where you are.
Order of Kilopi
I still like Bob Dylan's answer:
8)
Order of Kilopi
I failed to include "chicken" and "Yeoww" to the list of colors in the GA poll. [No wonder the response is light]I still like Bob Dylan's answer:
8)
Order of Kilopi
but rising (and setting) suns are often red, even here
Established Member
Green flash?but rising (and setting) suns are often red, even here
Order of Kilopi
True, but most often it does not set (and even less, rise) as red. No doubt the sun has had quite a history in being integrated into various cultures.but rising (and setting) suns are often red, even here
Banned
What's this- SUN CHANGED COLOR ?!?
Someone alert Superman immediately !!
Established Member
Hmmm... Perhaps you remember that the sun was yellow because the situations where you noticed it and your brain tagged it as worthy of remembering was when its apparent color was more yellow due to its position in relation to you and the atmosphere. People tend to not watch the sky during the day much, and tend to avoid looking at the sun since for most people its uncomfortable to do so. How ever its harder to avoid doing so when its low in the sky(and so more yellow). Children are most likely more attentive to things near the ground.
Why children would think the sun is white today.... Perhaps the thing is that kids these days play less outside, so when a child in older times may have been outside all day, and so being more adapted to high light conditions a child these days may just be outside for a few minutes to walk to eir friend to play the new video game eir have just got. If these two children looked at the same sun, even when lower in the sky, the adapted childs eyes would not be as sensitive(having less light sensitive chemicals), any intense light with a broad spectrum of emotion will appear as white if you are adapted to a lower level of light, a person that is only out for short times, especially at times of day that the sun is low in the sky, will probably remember the sun as whitish. But this is just a guess I make I may very well be wrong in this...
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