# The Sun isn't yellow.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 27, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247 "2012-05-27T14:49:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![luv2draw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@luv2draw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luv2draw)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247/41 "2012-05-28T23:56:31Z")

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> [@Becky2844](#):
>
> What else would you use your yellow crayon for? (Okay, flowers. And one stripe of the rainbow.)

(1) Sally’s hair.  
Sally of Dick, Jane and Sally fame. But you need blue to outline it. Don’t know why but that is what they made us do when we learned to color in school. Not like I hadn’t been coloring on my own way before that, but I digress.

(2) And a banana.

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**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247/42 "2012-05-28T23:56:54Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I call BS. Unless you did the experiment when the sun was low in the sky, sunlight is the very definition of “white” – The CIE Chromaticity coordinates of sunlight – B, C, and D – are meant to represent sunlight. None of them is yellow:
> 
> [Standard illuminant - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_illuminant)
> 
> The amount of blue scattered out of sunlight when it’s high in the sky isn’t enough to mmake it look yellow. I’d be curious to see your “histogram” data that suggests otherwise.
> 
> It is true that as the sun descends it traverses more atmosphere, and as it gets lower (and less irritating to the eye) it will appear more yellow as it gets closer to the horizon. The setting sun , depending upon how much dust and the like is in the air, will appear yellow, orange, or red. I suspect that people universally say the sun is yellow because, if you plot out the CIE coordinates of the sun, it progresses from white directly toward the yellow point on the spectral locus (I’ve done the calculation) before veering off to orange or red.
> 
> As Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer (and a onetime Doper) pointed out, if sunlight were yellow because of the blue light scattered out, then anything white would appear yellow – white houses, whie signs, white cumulus clouds. Despite Billfish’s assrtions, they certainly don’t appear that way to me – or to the people who designated the standard illuminants.

I clearly remember sitting with my two daughters watching for the sizzle as the sun set into the (Pacific) ocean. It may have been a very pale yellow, but I remember white. There were times, when the sky wasn’t very clear, when it appeared reddish, especially when cloudy and/or stormy.

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**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247/43 "2012-05-29T00:37:08Z")

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> [@mcgato](#):
>
> I believe that you meant [Rayleigh scattering.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering)

Yes, that is, in fact, what I meant.  
Thank you for the gentle correction.

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**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247/44 "2012-05-29T00:41:10Z")

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> [@billfish678](#):
>
> Well, technically speaking if there is a shitload of aluminum foil floating around in the atmosphere there will also be significant Reynolds scattering.

Now see here.  
There is no way that I can reply to this without saying “Curses foiled again!”

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**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sun-isnt-yellow/623247/45 "2012-05-29T00:54:16Z")

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heh…good one 🙂

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