How far away from the sun would you have to be before you can look at it without damaging your eyes?

Question

Iridium flares don't damage your eyes. They are mag. -8

Solar eclipses do damage your eyes. Even at 0.1% uncovered. That's magnitude -19

They both have the same surface brightness.

So where is the limit? It must be in between the two.

Answer 1

It's the ultraviolet light that damages your eyes. Therefore if there would be no atmosphere to filter the light then there would be no safe distance. Since theoretically we can't travel faster than the speed of light then if you were to travel away from the sun at near light speed you would never be able to get far enough away from it to catch up to the edge of space where it's light has reached to date.
Our atmosphere filters most of the harmful light that reaches us here on earth. Without that atmosphere protecting us everyone on the planet would go blind in minutes and there would be no life left on earth. Without the atmosphere filtering some of the uv light hitting us, even staring at a distant star for too long will make you blind too. (providing the star is giving off uv light to begin with.)

Answer 2

Let me figure it out. ... if 0.1% uncovered is at the "safe" limit, then 1/ 0.1% = 1000, and sqrt(1000) = 31.6, so you would need to be 32 AU away to be at the "safe" limit. I would prefer to be at 45 AU, to get another factor of 2 safety.

But that's assuming that I have something (like a spacesuit visor) that attenuates sunlight the same as the Earth's atmosphere. Real spacesuits have much better protection.

Answer 3

The nearest star (not the Sun) is about 4 Light Years away, and you can look at it with no problem. So it would be less than 4 Light Years distance, but a lot more than 93,000,000 Miles ( 1 AU ).

Answer 4

she must be white end and end all. Ur sister needs a reality examine. if she wasnt doing it to be white then this seem might want to only be non everlasting, and she might want to comprehend she appears like crap. it really is a self-worth issue. tell her that she is amazingly the way she clearly is and through protecting it wont help. i imagine its positive to have blonde hair or blue eye contacts temporarly (even besides the indisputable fact that blue eyes are pushing it), she shouldnt believe it really is how she should be.