why does the sun appear yellow?

Answer 1

The Sun's surface temperature (5,500 degrees C) produces a range of visible light (red to blue) in which yellow is the most plentiful, but not much more than other colors it produces. If the Sun were cooler, say 2,500 degrees C, it would look red, like the stars Antares and Betelgeuse. Or if the Sun were hotter, say 15,000 degrees C, it would look blue, like the star Rigel. The Earth's atmosphere acts as a kind of light filter. Some colors are filtered more than others. The Sun is a yellow star, but the Earth's atmosphere makes the Sun look more yellow than it appears than if you were to observe it from space where it would appear more white than yellow. But you don't have to leave Earth to see that the Sun is really less yellow than it appears.

Answer 2

"We need to start with the fact that white light is a combination of all colors produced equally by a glowing object. A glowing object that appears blue is blue because it's producing more blue light than it is producing red, orange, yellow, green light. The color of a glowing object depends on the temperature of the object. Now we can proceed to your question. Two Reasons why the Sun appears yellow:

1. The Sun's surface temperature (5,500 degrees C) produces a range of visible light (red to blue) in which yellow is the most plentiful, but not much more than other colors it produces. If the Sun were cooler, say 2,500 degrees C, it would look red, like the stars Antares and Betelgeuse. Or if the Sun were hotter, say 15,000 degrees C, it would look blue, like the star Rigel.

2 The Earth's atmosphere acts as a kind of light filter. Some colors are filtered more than others. The Sun is a yellow star, but the Earth's atmosphere makes the Sun look more yellow than it appears than if you were to observe it from space where it would appear more white than yellow. But you don't have to leave Earth to see that the Sun is really less yellow than it appears. If you are in the Rocky Mountains at 11,000 ft elevation, the Sun looks less yellow and more white than it does at sea level. There are fewer air molecules at this elevation to filter the Sun's other colors. Imagine what the Sun would look like from an airplane at 40,000 ft altitude--quite white! Also, when you are able to look at the Sun where you live, it's morning or late afternoon. It's easier to look at the Sun for a few seconds than it is a noon. The Sun appears more yellow at those times than it would if you were to observe it at noon (12 PM) when Sun is highest in the sky for the day; it's at its brightest and whitest--hard to look at. Because of the Sun's high position at noon, the sunlight has less air to travel through. Less air means less filtering of other colors. Remember: Light appears white because all colors are equally reaching your eyes. So, at noon the Sun appears to be more white, less yellow--closer to the way it really is! (Don't try to make this observation without hi-tech eye protection)."

Answer 3

Two reasons really. First of all the peak emission of visible light from the Sun occurs at a wavelength of 550nm which occurs in the yellow region of the spectrum. Also our eyes have evolved to have a peak sensitivity at around the same wavelength so although sunlight is technically described as white by physicists since it contains all visible colours, we are more aware of the yellow part of the solar spectrum.

Answer 4

It isn't, really. The color yellow is a purely human interpretation of a collection of radiation that hits the retinae of our eyes and gets processed by our visual cortex. Animals seem to have some analogous way of discriminating light by some kind of 'coloration' sense, but we have no way to know if their brains actually 'see' the same thing we do when they look at 'yellow' light. Color detection is caused by photosensitive cells called 'cones', and some animals have none of these and would see the Sun as, presumably some shade of grey since there retinae have the black-white sensitive 'rods' instead, and which have a greater light sensitivity.

Answer 5

From space it appears white, but since the Earth's atmosphere filters out some of the blues and violets, the remaining colors combined look yellow.

Answer 6

the sun emits light which has a wavelength in the region 550-600nm we observe this as yellow hence the sun appears yellow.

Answer 7

the sun is actually orange because of all the sulfur and radiation eminating off the surface..

the reason it looks yellow to us at times, is because our own atmosphere distorts the color.

Answer 8

Because the sun is yellow.

I would know from my constant warfares under the blazing YELLOW sun.

Octavius has spoken

Answer 9

check the answer of the other question of urs

Why does the sky around appear reddish during sunset and sunrise?

Answer 10

because of the contents of the sun and of the atmosphere. but it mostly depends on th temerature of the sun itself