# What color is the Sun outside the Earth's atmosphere?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 11, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810 "2009-12-11T02:35:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810/1 "2009-12-11T02:35:54Z")

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Tittle says it all.

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**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810/2 "2009-12-11T03:09:36Z")

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Previous thread on the topic

> **[What color is the sun?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=319856)**
>
> The atmosphere bends the light coming from the sky making the sky blue and the sun yellow. So what color is the sun really, if viewed from space?

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**Author:** ![The\_Man\_Who\_Wasn\_t\_There](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@The\_Man\_Who\_Wasn\_t\_There](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_Who_Wasn_t_There)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810/3 "2009-12-11T03:14:54Z")

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[Like this](http://soi.stanford.edu/results/SolPhys200/Schrijver/images/compositeSun2.jpg). The central image is a ‘true colour’ composite taken by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer.

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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:** [December 11, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810/4 "2009-12-11T03:15:20Z")

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Pretty damn close to “white” actually.

Take a nice clear day with a blue sky and the sun high in the air. Find a nice isolated puffy white cloud. THAT cloud is what the sun would look like outside of the atmosphere.

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**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-the-sun-outside-the-earths-atmosphere/520810/5 "2009-12-11T03:17:32Z")

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What do you mean? If you look at it, it’s white – blinding white. The peak of the solar spectrum is near 500 nm, or a slightly bluish green, but you won’t see that differentiated. The peak of a blackbody at the sun’s temperature is slightly on the yellow-pink side. Compared to standard “daylight” spectra (which we are adapted to see as white), the unfiltered sun spectrum ought to be very slightly yellowish or peach-colored, but most people comparing the two think it looks faintly bluish.

So I’m going with white.