eli5: How much smaller/weaker would the sun have to be to be able to look at it from Earth without eye damage?

Question

eli5: How much smaller/weaker would the sun have to be to be able to look at it from Earth without eye damage?

In: 0

Answer 1

It depends on the circumstances and what kind of eye damage you want to prevent.

Long term UV radiation damage to your lens?, Retina damage because you are looking through a telescope? etc…

Even with the current brightness of the sun, some kinds of eye damage takes years to develop and making the sun weaker just makes this time longer so having a looking at the sun “without eye damage” might not be possible.