What color is the sun? The answer to this question seems obvious — yellow. That’s what we see every day, isn’t it? But you will be surprised to learn that the true color of the Sun is not absolute Yellow or even White. Seems confusing? Don’t worry, NASA has it all covered! According to the space agency, the color we perceive is undeniably influenced by many different factors. These include the wavelength and intensity of the light emitted, the environmental conditions, the ability and limitations of our eyes to perceive light, and ultimately the activity of our brain.
The astronomical image of today is essentially the color spectrum of the Sun. However, there are some colors missing too! Spectrum shared by NASA has the full range of observable colors emitted by Sun when its light is passed through a prism-like device. How do scientists observe all the colors of the Sun? NASA also revealed that.
NASA’s explanation
This spectrum was generated at the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory and the finding is intriguing. While our Sun, appeared white we, which emits light spanning nearly all colors, it shines most strongly in the yellow-green region, NASA explains. The dark patches observed in the spectrum occur due to absorption of sunlight by gases present at or on the surface of the Sun. However, since every gas has its own absorption color, it becomes easier to determine the composition of the Sun.
Why do we perceive the color of the Sun as Yellow?
On Earth, the atmosphere significantly affects the color of the Sun. As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, blue light of shorter wavelength is scattered more efficiently than red light of longer wavelength. As a result, we see a decrease in the blue color of the Sun. Furthermore, all wavelengths of visible light passing through our atmosphere are reduced, preventing the light reaching our eyes from crowding the cone receptors. This change allows the brain to perceive colors in images with a slight decrease in the blue to yellow spectrum. That’s why we perceive the Sun as yellow when the sun rises or sets.
