Is the sun yellow or orange?

Answer 1

Look yellow to whom? Back when I was young and stupid, I tried looking directly at the sun at noon a couple of times. I'm lucky I didn't go blind. However, it looked white to me (actually, it looked painfully white, with a sort of blue blob chasing around in it like the afterimage you see when a camera flash goes off).

The sun looks yellow (or even orange or red) when it rises or sets because its light is traveling through a lot more of the atmosphere then, and that's scattering out the shorter wavelengths (the sky appears blue during the day because the blue rays get scattered out preferentially; this is more or less the same phenomenon).

Our eyes are designed to see in the Sun's light, so it ought to be the very definition of "white". And it pretty much is, at noon, less so at dawn or dusk.

(So why is the Sun a "yellow dwarf"? That's a separate issue, and has to do less with its visual appearance and more with where the peak in its light output curve is.)

Answer 2

t doesn't; it radiates brilliantly throughout the spectrum. If you are able to look at the Sun and not be permanently blinded, it's because you are looking at the Sun through one or more filters, and those filters are absorbing all except the yellow-ish light. With different filters, the Sun would seem to be some other color.

Answer 3

The Sun's light appears yellow because that is the wavelength of light which is most strongly emitted by the sun. However, it gives out light of every colour of the rainbow (plus other light that can't be seen by the human eye).

When the sun shines on the moon, the moon's surface absorbs every colour of light, but it absorbs some colours more than others - those colours that aren't absorbed very strongly are reflected, and these are the colours that we see. However, it is generally recognised that the moon we see high in the sky is effectively white, not blue (although colour perception is a very personal thing, so there is no absolutely 'correct' colour).

Photography can be used to enhance and exaggerate, and, with this method, the greyish maria are seen as shades of blue or brown, corresponding to the presence of iron and titanium, whereas the highland areas exhibit more yellow, pink and pale blue colours.

When the moon is low in the sky, the effects of the atmosphere are seen on its colour - making it appear red, orange or yellow - this results from the same effect that makes the sun appear red at sunrise and sunset.

Answer 4

The sun is bright yellow because of the chemical reaction of gases that occur every second of every day. the fire and flames that are produced by the sun are almost 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Answer 5

Because of it's temperature.

See related question

Answer 6

One is the distance from earth effects the color we see

Answer 7

Stars shine in different colors, depending on their temperature. But at low levels of light, we can't distinguish colors, so all the stars look white.

Answer 8

Our Sun is a yellow dwarf star

Answer 9

... of it's temperature.

Answer 10

The yellow star is hotter.