Each photon of light has a certain amount of energy (E=hf). Our eyes are only sensitive to the photons which have energy where the frequency of light, f, falls within the visible spectrum. These photons have no color attribute of their own; it is the process which happens within each color cone that sends the appropriate signal to our brain which renders the color.

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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.

in the above context, I would like to further say that sun's original color may be like " the electricity waves in the thundering clouds", and when such whitish light enter in our atmosphere it appears like yellow, or reddish in the morning and in the evining, these are the impacts of "carbonic layers" on the horizones both at east side and at the west side, as appear when we are in the directions to the sun at the time of sun rise and sun set. the original color of light of the sun is mostly white. !

sunil

to human eyes under the blanket of the atmosphere... the sun appears to be yellowish white, from space it would be white to pinkish going from this study http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/colour/Tspectrum.html

but to the everyday human eye the sun really does appear white !

That is the view of a slight majority around here. Please cast your vote, too, in the Midday Sun Poll.

Just why yellow is seen is unclear because if you project the solar image onto a white card, only white is seen, at least for me. Also, just for kicks, I used a simple strobe (SAD - Solar Attenuation Device ) and the sun appeared only white. Also, the clouds do not look yellow-white and they reflect light evenly, as I understand. Regardless, yellow is often seen.

Yes, that one has been around for a while. It is a computer estimated color. I think it is incorrect.


The simplest and biggest argument favoring white, especially over any yellow addition, is the fact that unfiltered solar projections at solar observatories produce only a white image of the disk. Since the atmosphere diminishes (extinctions) more of the blue end of the spectrum than the red, then adding more of the blue end back into the color would produce more of a blue or blue-green color, but only if enough is added. However, I think there just isn't enough to make the sun's color change from white.

[Quicly added: There is a likelyhood that the central region of the sun would indeed look bluish-white (assuming one adequately reduces the intensity to the eye).]

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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.