What color is the sun?

Question

my friend insists its yellow, but isnt it really white?!! SERIOUSLY!

Answer 1

Date: Mon Dec 13 16:49:03 1999
Posted By: Evan Dorn, Grad student, Computational and Neural Systems, California Inst. Of Technology/ JPL
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 943421862.As Message:

This is an excellent question, because it allows us to explore two different aspects of what we call "color". The quick answer, for anyone who doesn't want the detailed explanation, is that the sun is a "yellow" star by definition, regardless of where you are, but, if you look at it in space it would be so bright that it would appear white.

The first has to do with physics and the nature of the light coming from the object you're observing, and the second has to do with physiology and how your eyes and brain perceive that light.

Let's look at the first. Stars emit light and other electromagnetic waves (radio, microwaves, x-rays, etc.) all across the spectrum, including the entire visible spectrum. We describe electromagnetic waves by their wavelength in nanometers (billionths of a meter). Visible light ranges from about 400nm (violet) to 700nm (red).

When something emits light evenly across the entire visible spectrum (for example, there are equal amounts of red, blue, yellow and green light), we call that light "white". However, the light coming from stars isn't spread evenly over the visible spectrum. Though light of all colors will be coming from any one star, that light will tend to have a peak at one color. For example, our sun has a peak in the yellow range, so while it produces light of all colors, it produces more yellow light. To be more precise, stars produce light waves at specific frequencies (called "lines" because they appear as lines in a spectrum from a prism). Our sun has emission lines at several colors, but it has two very strong lines right next to each other at around 590nm, which is fairly yellow.

So our sun's light, though really spread across many colors, peaks in the yellow range; this is true whether or not you have the atmosphere between us an the sun. The peak of a star's light depends on the surface temperature of the star. If you're interested in that subject, I recommend a web site describing the Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram, which explains how astronomers categorize stars by their temperature, luminosity, size, and age. On the H-R diagram, our sun is a G-class (yellow to yellowish orange) star.

Answer 2

If we dismiss the color changing effect of having its light going through a less than perfectly transparent atmosphere, the best evaluation of the true color of the sun is "pinkish". See link, someone actually spent quite a bit of time figuring this out.

Answer 3

The colour of the sun is reorangbluewhite

Answer 4

It's Burning !!

So it would have colors like

Red
Blue
Yellow
Orange
or even Green

It's a fact !

;)

Take Care

Answer 5

its orangeish yellowish i dont think its white

Answer 6

yeah i am pretty sure that it is white