Have you ever thought that the Sun is actually green? This is partly true. It’s not just your eyes playing tricks on you; the Sun also emits yellow, blue, and red light.
“The entire Sun, including all its internal layers, emits light. ‘The color of the Sun’ refers to the spectrum of colors present in sunlight, which arises from the complex interactions of all the components of the Sun,” said Christopher Baird, an associate professor of physics at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.
This means that if we want to determine what color the Sun is, we need to analyze the rays of this star and quantify them right here on Earth.
Essentially, there are many different ways to do this. However, most of these methods do not require high-tech equipment. In fact, children can also perform some experiments to analyze sunlight.
“The colors within a beam of light can be easily identified by passing the beam through a prism. This inexpensive handheld tool disperses the beam of light into different simple colors. Each simple color has its own unique wave frequency,” Associate Professor Baird told Live Science.
This is also why scientists tend to use the terms “color” and “frequency” interchangeably, as each color within sunlight is defined by its frequency. For visible light, red has the lowest frequency and violet has the highest. The range of colors, or frequencies within the beam of light, is referred to as the spectrum.
When directing sunlight through a prism, we see all the colors of the rainbow emerging from the other side. This means that we can see all the colors that the human eye can perceive.
The Sun is a synthesis of many colors that humans perceive as white.
Essentially, the Sun is a synthesis of many colors that humans perceive as white. But this is when you are outside the atmosphere and view the Sun from places like the International Space Station (ISS).
On Earth, the Sun appears more yellow due to atmospheric effects. But why do humans see the Sun as white?
According to NASA, the reason is that this star emits bright light containing all visible colors, from red to blue. So if the Sun actually has all these colors but you only see it as white, why can it be said that the Sun is green?
The reason is that the green part of the spectrum it emits is the strongest, specifically the part closer to blue. Therefore, if considering the strongest light, you could say the Sun is a blue star.
The Color of the Sun as Seen in Space
According to astronauts, the Sun appears in space as well WHITE.
“I can confirm the truth of this in space,” replied former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station Scott Kelly to a tweet mentioned at the beginning of this article.
When viewed from space, the Sun is also white; the term “Yellow Dwarf” does not refer to its color.
According to the Stanford Solar Energy Center at Stanford University, the reason is similar to why the human eye sees the Sun as white when on Earth.
The reason the image of the Sun appears yellow, or even green or blue in some NASA images, is that these images have been edited and filtered to display specific details.
Additionally, the Sun is indeed classified as a “Yellow Dwarf” — but this name simply refers to its average size and is a common name for this type of star.
<pThus, when viewed from the human perspective and removing the scattering effects of Earth's atmosphere, sunlight is white. This has been confirmed by astronauts in space and can also be seen in photographs of the Sun taken from space.
