Why do we perceive the sun as yellow?

Question

As we all know, the reason color exists is because an object we see as Green absorbs all the colors except for Green (which reflects off of it and is perceived by our eye). Therefore, light from the Sun must contain all the colors or else the world would not have any perceivable color, right?

However, if the Sun is producing light (and not just a usual surface which reflects light), how can it be that the Sun is perceived as yellow?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Light having a shorter wavelength (blue light) is more readily scattered by the atmosphere. This is why the sky looks blue...

The bluish part of the spectrum from the Sun tends to reach us indirectly from the whole sky and the rest, which reaches us directly tends to be yellowish if we look directly at the Sun (although our senses may "saturate" and perceive the Sun as white nevertheless).

This separation of sunlight into a direct and indirect part means that shadows will have a blue hue because they are lit only by the sky and not directly by the Sun... Beginning in the 19th century, artists started painting shadows with a touch of blue, (sometimes exaggerating the effect, which is actually barely noticeable).

When the Sun is low on the horizon, its rays travel a longer distance through the atmosphere and the effect becomes more pronounced (even more so if there's moisture in the air). This is when the Sun may start to look really yellow, or orange, or red... Enjoy the Sunset !

FOOTNOTE:

Don't let me get started on the reasons why, under the right conditions, the last rays of the Sun may look green (or white) for a fraction of a second before it disappears under the horizon. This is called the "green flash" and it's really amazing the first time you see it. You have to look for the effect when the Sun sets over the Ocean in calm weather through some thin distant haze... Pay attention when the edge of the disk is about to disappear and don't blink at the wrong time !

Answer 2

i perceive it as white

Answer 3

cuz it is

Answer 4

rwyey

Answer 5

the blue from red light

Answer 6

you do we eprcieve anything as anything - its absurd - why do we percieve god as good or work as bad. Why do we connect our sadness with the colour blue - there so many questions in the world and so little time to answer them - u make a very good point

Love James

Answer 7

because we use to perceive fire as yellow. of course not every fire is yellow but the most common ones and the sun's.

Answer 8

I've read up on this before and I don't think I found a definitive answer. While the sun produces the entire spectrum, it actually pumps out more light of the green wavelength, though we still see it as yellow.

One thing I read was the same reason that a lightbulb appears yellow if you stare at it, while its pumping out white light. For whatever reason, maybe our retinas kind of undergo a burn-in effect from the brightness, and that burn in is yellow.

Basically I don't think anyone knows for sure.

Answer 9

It's about the Sun's position, refraction and absorbtion game.

PS we also perceive Sun as red and orange too; same game with other parameters - especially Sun's position.

Answer 10

Our eyes have evolved so that our light source is in the middle of our visual wavelength. Yellow is in the middle of the spectrum.

Answer 11

The answer to this has two parts, and basically both of your assertions are wrong.

First, colour perception is complex. If you take a sheet of paper from outside (whitish light) to inside (light bulbs - almost entirely red light) it still looks white. The eye is very good at compensating for changes in illumination, and it does this by comparing colour information across the field of view. This is called colour constancy. So the colour you see does not depend much on the wavelengths of light that come from an object, but how these compare to the light from other objects.

Second, all hot bodies have a spectrum characteristic of their temperature. They peak at some colour (near green for the sun) and trail off in either direction around this. So the sun does have a colour.

Answer 12

There are many reasons as to why the sun appears to be yellow in the sky.

For general purposes, the reason why the sun appears to be yellow, is that while the sun does produce white light, the actual spectrum of sunlight contains a significantly large band of 'yellow' light.

Other instances where the sun appears to be different colors are due to refraction of the sunlight through the Earth's atmosphere, which contains many particles of different elements and compounds.