The color of the sun reveals a range of information about our star including the stages of its life and how it interacts with the atmosphere of Earth. The sun is white-kind of. It depends on your interpretation of color, the way colors work, the way our eyes see and, just as importantly, the air we see through.
Learn what color the Sun is and why it appears different colors from Space, the Earth, and in photographs. The Sun would have to emit only green light for our eyes to perceive it as green. This means the actual colour of the Sun is white.
So, why does it generally look yellow? This is because the Earth's atmosphere scatters blue light more efficiently than red light. Think the Sun is yellow? Think again. Discover the true color of our star and why it looks so different from Earth's surface.
Why Does The Sun Look Yellow? The sun imaged in multiple wavelengths of light. Image credit: NASA/SDO You may be wondering why the sun appears yellow if its true color is blue-green. This has to do with Earth's atmosphere.
When sunlight hits our atmosphere, shorter wavelength light is scattered. Scattered blue light is the reason why Earth's sky is blue. Although most short wavelength.
In photos, the sun looks bright and white or we might perceive it as a bit yellow because of how light is scattered in the air. But the sun has all colors of the rainbow, and white light is created by that combination. Discover the sun's surprising true color, the atmospheric science behind its yellow appearance, and its role in Earth's vibrant hues.
"The color components of sunlight are so close enough to being present in equal amounts that it is much more correct to say that the sun is white than to say it is yellow, orange, or any other. When you move the slider back and forth in the activity above, you're seeing the sun - up close - in different wavelengths! Light travels in waves, and the distance between the peaks of a wave is called the wavelength. The different colors you see in this slider activity aren't actually color photos of the sun, but they do represent different wavelengths of light and different.