Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by pzone on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:29PM
(#24100697)
The spectral peak is blue-green but the emission is relatively even along the visible light range, so if any color is perceptible it's only a very slight tint. The atmosphere scatters blue light more than other colors so direct sunlight viewed from Earth at noon is even more balanced and pure white.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.sv...
Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by zbrozek on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:15PM
(#24100600)
The sun is not a monochromatic source. It's an incoherent, broadband source. The power spectrum distribution of those wavelengths pretty-closely follows the black body radiation curve. If you had a monochromatic source at that peak it would look green.
Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by petermcneeley on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:28PM
(#24100690)
I would guess the most scientific answer would be a convolution of these plots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:S...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#/media/File:Cone-...
Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by greesil on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:14PM
(#24100593)
My understanding is that the spectrum follows the black body radiation curve with a temperature of approximately 6000K. Peak color is green. White is closer to the truth IMO because it is a combination of multiple colors, but still misses the mark because how does "white" contain UV, radio waves, infrared of very different magnitudes?
Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by jerf on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:29PM
(#24100702)
The color of something is not defined by its peak radiative frequency. I can easily create a spectrum that has a peak in blue but looks red, by having a lot more red overall but not at one frequency.
Re:“What color is the Sun?” An example of science education ...
by scarmig on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:16PM
(#24100606)
The sun doesn't emit a single electromagnetic wavelength; the light it emits instead broadly falls on a, uh, spectrum, including wavelengths that are either too large or too small to be perceived by our eyes.
It makes the most sense to call that white. Although, the wavelength of peak intensity is a green.
Hmm, isn't sun wavelength actually closer to very very bright green?