Prior to Newton, this might be true. I would enjoy learning the various ideas of how color was "seen" prior to his discovery that white light is combined colors.

Our atmosphere takes out some of the red light and takes out increasing amounts of the shorter wavelengths. Some of this depletion is scattered and results in a blue sky. If the sun's surface temperature were a little higher, the sky might appear violet (assuming our eyes would evolve accordingly). White tail deer can see easily in violet, apparently. So, if you are sneaking into a deer blind tomorrow on opening day, you might want to go a little earlier as the sky is likely bright to them.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

George you are correct.

Thanks. It's where helichromoligsts come in handy. [Though none actually exist. . Self-proclomations don't count, and rightfully so. ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

The sun's color, as it appears, depends alot on how we percieve it. Everything from atmosphere and they way an individual's brain and eyes are 'wired' will effect this alot (for example, the sun appears red-ish on the horizon, and some people are colorblind).
This being said, the sun is actually (I'm almost certain) a yellow color. As you guys probably know, stars come in all sorts of varieties from red giants to tiny blue stars. The sun sits in the yellow part of that 'star spectrum.'
Because the light is extreamly intense, it often appears to be white.


And possibly another reason for this is the fear of spectroscopy being mentioned ^_^ but just in case it's not... another ways to tell the 'colors' of a star, or any object that is hot enough to emit light, is to put that light through a prism, which breaks it down in to 'spectrum lines' (which can be difficult to find with your own prism, but look extreamly cool ) which can be used to identify the elements that the glowing object is comprised of. However, I've never done this with the sun, only with special mercury or argon lamps, so I don't recommend trying it (because it is easy to be blinded by sunlight, so be sure to leave that to the professionals). In a way, the specturm lines are the 'true colors' of the sun.
I'm pritty sure all this is correct, but it could be wrong...
I hope this helps your quest?

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I reject your reality and substitute my own! - Adam Savage

Two by two, hands of blue - River, Firefly

You might enjoy some of the other related threads. This one incorporates the use of a prism..... Sun's Intrinsic Color

Using a simple strobe, I obtained a white appearance for the sun. However, I only reduced the sun's light by 99.9% which, surprisingly, may not be quite enough, but I'm going with it for now. More here

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

sun is just colorless even white color should not be there, in other words sun's color can not be define in a specific color, George, anyway you are saying white its ok, but when the massive flairs ejects through the sun is there a possibility to change of this white one? and during the sunspots on a large mass of sun what the lower layer's color indicate with which one ??
congrats for the 3000+postings GEORGE

sunil

This was written prior to Newton, apparently. Prior to him, it kinda makes sense to think sunlight might have no color. Otherwise, how could sunlight cause all the objects to have so many colors if it had a color of its own, I suppose. Newton solved the mystery by running sunlight through a prism, which refracted each color, then he recombined all these colors through a second prism to produce the original white light. He reasoned that sunlight contains all these colors. I do not know of alternate ideas of sunlight after his work.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

George, really true one,
the topic is very nice, but the answer is very difficult for me, you know few time anyone starts assuming when he don't know the correct answer, in the verious astronimical things there is a great "probability" in assuming the things if it is unknown sometime, i cannot say confirmly that what color is of sunlight, you are quite correct in the simplification of the matter of the real possibility, and if this is your own research then that's great one, George.

whenever we look it through the prism at that time only we witness the 7 colors otherwise not, means whenever the original sunlight comes into the contact of "medium" it shows it's show of colors otherwise not it appears like white, you are really true one.

sunil

It is interesting how light, and vision, was explained in the days of the early Greeks. Heron (Hero), in Alexandria, a couple thousand years ago, was regarded as the physicist of his time. He believed our eyes emitted rays to allow us to see. He assumed the speed to be infinite for these rays in order for us to see celestial bodies, such as stars.

Today, much tougher tests are done to verify an idea. The separation of colors due to a medium (refraction) is explained by the way different wavelengths travel at different speeds through different mediums. This explains further the "why" Newton had it right.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

George, u mean that in corona part of the eye reflecting the color of the image in a different color, or is there a possibility of prism like formation in the eye to see the white color in different colors in different situations. may be such infrastructure is within our eyes. your logic is really good going as far as color anatomy of sun rays are concern.


sunil

The eye is an extremely sophisticated instrument - possibly the most ever. As sunlight passes through several layers of the eye, especially the lens, refraction which separates colors occurs. Blue light becomes separated enough from red light that it would be a problem for the eye/brain to handle. Interestingly, there are no blue color cones in the fovea (the central and mose sensitive region on the retina). [There are three types of color cones - red, green and blue; this is oversimplification, however.]The movement of the retina allows the blues to be received and processed properly, in some amazing way, no doubt.

The end result allows the eye to see color properly. White light will still look white, even though it refracts a tiny amount as it enters the eye.

I am definetly and amateur here. Yet, I think I am pretty close.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

that's fine george.

may be the universe is in the 3D type of visionary, our eyes filter the 3D into the correct images of the universe ? or the all images we are looking originally in inverse position our eyes are correcting that images to know to the brain that the images are in the simple position and not in inverse position, and this sort of rule may also be reflect about the white color of sun rays as far as our eyes it looks colorful at different times.

sunil

The sun always seems white hot in the mid day ranges. Then when it shines through more atmosphere (dusk and dawn) it turns yellow, then orange. It just depends on how much atmosphere there is in it's way. I bet if you went into space it would be even brighter and whiter since theres no atmosphere to filter it.

Your view would be appreciated in this poll.
Yes. Rayleigh scattering causes the shorter wavelengths to not reach the observer [of direct sunlight], allowing the longer and redder wavelengths to be observed.

The intensity of the sun is at least 2x that of terrestrial brightness in the blue portion of the spectrum. The overall flux is only reduced about 20%, I think, for a high altitude sun. Of course, it drops considerably at low altitudes and some what say it is zero at night. ]

[I thought this thread was history. ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

we are unable to state the real colour of sun, it is just impossible to assume, for the hot things we can not assume what is burning behind the flames, the only emited colour appears to be an orange, or light red or yellow only, but the original matter's colour we can state precisely.
hence the question is unanswered for me, George.

sunil

The question is not that scientific because what light is under the surface is not an issue. The question does need some qualifying, however - "If viewed from space and with proper calibrated attenuation, what is the observed color of the sun?". The Sun is too affected by our atmosphere to gurantee a sure color result unless appropriate corrections for the atmosphere's effect are implemented.

There are several ways a sure fire result can be accomplished....
1) Have at least one astronaut look at the sun with a solar attenuation device (SAD ) , e.g. strobe or filter, and compare the observed color to a color chart.
2) Reproduce the spectral irradiance of the sun and homogenize it into one observable spot (e.g. SPACC).
3) Develop a computer model that takes spectral irridance data and produces the correct color. [I have yet to find one that is very accurate. ]
4) Create a pure vacuum in the atmosphere that is aligned with the sun and use the SAD from option #1.
5) Wait a few billion years when it will always appear red, and then declare a definitive color then (red, of course ).
6) [Reserved for more imaginative Baut members.]

[Added: I did leave out a balloon ride. ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

This is an interesting thread. It seems to me we can use a prism in low Earth orbit to measure the watts per picometer of wave length of sunlight. If watts are slightly higher in the blue region, we could say the sun has a slight blue tint.
However human eyes are not linear, so perception may be a different tint. Personally, I have noticed a slight tint of yellow when the sun is high in the sky and the path through the air is relatively free of polutants and water droplets.
When my local is shadded by a cloud, the yellow tint disappears, and I would say white for high in the sky.
Typically red and orange tints are quite noticable when the sun is close to the horizon and some water droplets are in the path. Neil

This is called spectral irradiance. It is well established as seen in space. There are numerous sites which show the sun's spectral irradiance as seen through various amounts of atmosphere. The sun radiates strongest in the blue portion of the spectrum, but it is still strong in the other colors which suggests it could appear white. I suspect it is a white or bluish-white star, not yellow.

You are not alone. Here is a poll taken on this subject. Please add to it.

Please tell me what you mean. It sounds interesting.

There is much information on this around here. Rayleigh scattering is the effect which describes how this works.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

do you think that the great proportion if we observe in the prism, when the sun rays drops on the prism, and if the yellow colour looks more intense so whether prism examination can show the rays original colour? in the old book "Dnyaneshwari" wrote by saint Dnayaneshwar who stated that sun's rays has no colour and they are colourless, but when they come out and reach through the different stages and spheres they appear as colourful.

the clouds in the sky during rainy season works like a prism and shows the colours of the rays differently i.e. in seven colours, so seven colours are the original colours of the sun rays? not probably, but see if a white colour sent through the prism say for the sake the bulb's light sent through the prism the colour will appear beyond the prism in seven colours again. if we burn the iron some blue, grinish, brown, red and yellow colours emits in the hot flames. so in my opinion the colours are much pretty decided with the properties of the original substance, and how that substance shows the colours in a specific situation that is important, hence for the sake the sun rays has no colour then the medium make it colourful and then we draw an assumption that sun's colour is red, yellow, orange likewise.

sunil