What would happen if we were exposed to a different type or colour of sun?

Question

Ok yeah, I got this idea from Superman - but what would happen if we were exposed to a sun of a different colour? Would we die? Would life as we know it work in a different way? Any scientists reading this and may know the answer, your comments are appreciated.

Answer 1

Nothing. The Sun emits all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum including visible light. Visible light already contains all colors. Your idea comes from fiction. Sometimes we need to keep fiction seperated from fact. Fiction is intended to entertain us. Not to provide us with scientific knowledge. It is difficult to come up with an answer to a question that is theoretically impossible.

Answer 2

The sun is actually emitting waves from all across the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes the sum of all the colors we can see, white light. When this light reaches us, the gases in the atmosphere absorb predominantly blue light from the sun's light and scatter it. (This is why the sky looks blue.) When the rays reach us, they appear to be toward the yellow side of the spectrum because blue light has been removed.

While temperature does have a slight effect of the light output of a star (blue = hotter, red = cooler) and is detectable enough to identify its age, the light being emitted still has enough of the other wavelengths to practically be considered white.

If the sun were to seriously peak on particular wavelengths, it is likely that enough of the other wavelengths would remain to require no change on Earth. However, if these other wavelengths dropped out, we might have some serious problems. For instance, if the sun emitted only green light, all plant life would die out since plants absorb all colors except green for photosynthesis (green is reflected off of plants). That would pretty much end life on Earth.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the hydrogen in the sun is not actually burning (no oxygen to fuel it). It is all being lit up by a relatively small (in comparison to the rest of the sun) thermonuclear fusion reaction fed by the pressure of the entire mass of the sun pushing inward due to gravity. This reaction is too violent to emit electromagnetic radiation steadily on any particular wavelength. Once it dies down however in several billion years, the reaction may not be able to produce particular ranges of wavelengths, including the small range that makes up visible light.

None of this color changing really has a scientific reason to occur. It is much more probable that light from the sun would be shifted to a particular color by activity here locally than by something occuring in the sun. A green liquid filter sprayed into the atmosphere could theoretically block out all the light needed by plants but the amount needed would be insane. It would be much easier to light off several big explosions and get tons of dust in the atmosphere and simply block out all light.

Answer 3

Well the color of the sun is an indication of how hot the sun is. So if we had a blue sun, we would probably all be dead because they emit so much radiation. If our sun was red, we would have a red giant star, which would also produce too much radiation. If we our sun was white, we would have a white dwarf star which probably would not be hot enough to support us. So basically we couldn't really have a different colored star without vastly different circumstances in our position to the sun and our magnetic sphere.

However, if we did have a different colored sun (just color, not size or heat) it probably wouldn't effect us very much. It would effect plants alot more than us. For instance if we had a red sun, plants would absorb less energy from light than otherwise, notice fallen leaves are often red which shows they reflect red light more than other colors. When leaves are green they are reflecting more green light than other colors, which explains whey we see green (from photosynthesizing chemicals) and not blue or some other color.

Answer 4

No. If the light output from the Sun peaked in another part of the visible spectrum (say, blue), then nothing much would change. However, if it started peaking in the infrared or ultraviolet, it would get kinda dark. Our eyes would probably evolve to see in other wavelengths.

Answer 5

Yes a different colored sun would effect surface temperatures depending on what type of sun we had and a different color would also change the colors of things here in the natural world.

Answer 6

"The sun isn't really yellow. 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." For all we know, the sun is green. ;)

Answer 7

The sun would still emit most wavelenghts of electromagnetic waves. We wouldn't die. We would probably seee differently, though.

Answer 8

Without the spectrum we evolved in, our bodies would probably not produce sufficient vitamin D

Answer 9

I don't think it would make too much difference. But that is really more of a biology question.