Question: what makes the sun yellow simplified?

David Taylor answered on 9 Jul 2025: last edited 9 Jul 2025 13:44

That’s an interesting question! The sun shines (astronomers say ’emits’) all the colours of light. If you were in space and you looked at the sun, it would be white, since white light is a mix of all the colours. However, when you’re on the Earth, you look at the sun through the Earth’s atmosphere. When the sun’s light passes through the atmosphere some of the light is scattered away and doesn’t reach our eyes. The atmosphere scatters more blue light than red light, and the lack of blue light reaching our eyes means that the sun appears to be yellow!