I think the most concise answer is “white.” Expanding a bit, we can say “pretty much all colors with very specific exceptions; mostly green.”
The Sun emits electromagnetic radiation spanning the spectrum. Sunlight feels hot to your skin because it contains infrared light, and it causes skin cancer because it contains ultraviolet light. It produces basically every wavelength in the fairly narrow visible spectrum–with some notable gaps; if you measure the sun’s spectra you’ll see gaps in the rainbow, because something something astrophysics something something electron orbitals something something specific wavelengths. Those gaps are characteristic of the elements the Sun is made of, which is how we can measure the chemical composition of even very distant stars.
You may know that some stars appear blue, some appear orange or red. Take a look at Orion, for example; his left shoulder is the very red star Betelgeuse, where his right knee is the bright blue Rigel. But nowhere in the sky will you find a star that looks green. that’s because stars that make more green light than red or blue–like our sun–also make lots of red and blue light, so to our eyes (which evolved under a green-peaking star), they appear white.
The sun appears yellow–or even orange or red near sunrise or sunset–when seen from Earth’s surface due to refraction because of our atmosphere. Viewed from Earth orbit, our star appears white.
We do. Like I said, look at the constellation of Orion. Some of the stars look red, others look blue. Most are just tiny points of white light, either because they’re so faint that your cones don’t register, or they’re a mid-tone star like our sun which appear white to our eyes.
I think the most concise answer is “white.” Expanding a bit, we can say “pretty much all colors with very specific exceptions; mostly green.”
The Sun emits electromagnetic radiation spanning the spectrum. Sunlight feels hot to your skin because it contains infrared light, and it causes skin cancer because it contains ultraviolet light. It produces basically every wavelength in the fairly narrow visible spectrum–with some notable gaps; if you measure the sun’s spectra you’ll see gaps in the rainbow, because something something astrophysics something something electron orbitals something something specific wavelengths. Those gaps are characteristic of the elements the Sun is made of, which is how we can measure the chemical composition of even very distant stars.
You may know that some stars appear blue, some appear orange or red. Take a look at Orion, for example; his left shoulder is the very red star Betelgeuse, where his right knee is the bright blue Rigel. But nowhere in the sky will you find a star that looks green. that’s because stars that make more green light than red or blue–like our sun–also make lots of red and blue light, so to our eyes (which evolved under a green-peaking star), they appear white.
The sun appears yellow–or even orange or red near sunrise or sunset–when seen from Earth’s surface due to refraction because of our atmosphere. Viewed from Earth orbit, our star appears white.
This makes me want to learn about space. Colorful stars? That blows my mind. I wish we had colorful stars in the sky so bad.
We do. Like I said, look at the constellation of Orion. Some of the stars look red, others look blue. Most are just tiny points of white light, either because they’re so faint that your cones don’t register, or they’re a mid-tone star like our sun which appear white to our eyes.