Why do sunlight appears yellow?

Answer 1

Sunlight itself is white as stated above. If you look at the sun in space with a camera that is recording in regular visible light, the sun appears yellow/orange. This is due to the sun's temperature. Our sun has a mediumish temperature, resulting in the yellow color. A cooler sun would be redder and a hotter sun would be blue or white.

Answer 2

tentofield is right. I thought I'd add a couple things, though. I think a lot of people believe this stuff about the sun being yellow because in artwork, the sun is pretty much always given a yellow color. When was the last time you saw a painting with the sun drawn on it as white? And if the background is white, you'd sorta HAVE TO draw it yellow. You can't draw a white sun on a white piece of paper. Kids are taught to draw the sun yellow because, well, yellow is the next closest thing to white.

Also, if the sun really was yellow, everything that's actually white would appear yellow. White cars, snow, a white house, a piece of white paper...even the moon...they would all appear yellow in sunlight.

Answer 3

Sunlight is white. Near sunrise and sunset when the Sun is low on the horizon, it has a more yellow colour to it as a lot of the blue light is scattered out of it but during the day it is white light - which is why clouds and fields of snow look white.

In a cave, when you have been using artificial light - which is yellow - for a while, when you see sunlight it looks blue in contrast to the yellow light.