The Sun might look yellow, but seen from space without an atmosphere filtering its light, the sun is actually white — and the yellow color we see from Earth is the result of our atmosphere scattering blue wavelengths away, in the same physics that makes the sky appear blue

The Sun is depicted as yellow in children’s drawings, in weather icons, on flags, and in the standard astronomical shorthand. Astronomers themselves classify it as a “yellow dwarf,” a G2V-type main sequence star. The yellow framing is so consistent across human culture and science that it can be surprising to learn that the Sun is […]