Is it yellow because from Earth it usually looks yellow to us? Or is it white because the sun gives off all wavelengths of light (white light)? Or is it some other color?
In: Planetary Science
Ok there are quite a few inaccuracies in these answers so I need to clear some things up. First, the sun is white. It’s not green, it is white. Stating the suns colour off a peak in the spectrum ignores the fact that it is still emitting all wavelengths of visible light (actually, all wavelengths of the EM spectrum). The problem with using a peak of a broad distribution to determine colour also ignores that there are different ways to plot a stars brightness. You can plot it as a function of frequency (making it “infra red”) or a function of wavelength (making it “Violet”). Both are perfectly correct ways to plot brightness, so why do we get two different answers? Again, because using the peak in the spectrum doesn’t determine colour.
In addition, the idea that the sun is a perfect blackbody emitter is wrong and over simplified. If you model the sun as a perfect blackbody, and plot it’s brightness as a function of wavelength then it is “green”. Astronomers use this model because it is convenient, but it is a simplification. An actual astronomer will tell you that the sun absolutely is not green but white. However news headlines love to say “the sun is green” without understanding why astronomers model it that way. TLDR the sun is white, it emits all colours in the visible spectrum which makes it white. Using the peak of a broad distribution of wavelength/frequency is not a way to determine colour
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