Buzz
What makes our Sun look orange, while other stars shine white? Could it be due to our atmosphere and oxygen? Would the Sun look white from a great distance?Viktor T. Toth:
The Sun itself is white, and it would appear white if observed from space.
The Earth's atmosphere scatters sunlight, particularly the shorter wavelengths like blue, giving the Sun a slight orange hue. The blue light isn’t gone; it’s what gives the sky its color. The blue light you see in the sky during the day is just sunlight that has been scattered.
As for the stars: I grew up in the city, just like you, and for years I believed stars were white. That was until one clear, moonless summer night, far from the city's lights, I gazed up at the sky after my eyes had fully adjusted to the dark. And... the sky was a canvas of colors! Orange, red, blue, green stars – they were all there.
This phenomenon is linked to the way our eyes process light. When the light is weak, we can't perceive color. So, if your eyes aren't fully adapted to the dark, the stars appear as faint points of light with no clear hue. However, the colors are present (and can even be captured in color astrophotography). And yes, just like sunlight, light from stars is scattered, so if you observed a nearby star with a color temperature similar to the Sun’s, once your eyes adapted to the dark, it would appear with the same slight orange tint as the Sun.
This article was first published on Quora. Click here to view.
