# What does the sun look like, viewed from Mercury?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 21, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392 "2004-02-21T17:52:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2004, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392/21 "2004-02-24T08:07:08Z")
OK, similar question (hijacking my own thread here…)
What would the night sky look like if we lived near the center of the galaxy? I know it’s pretty inhospitable there, what with the lack of stable orbits, intense radiation, and presence of a nearby monster black hole, but if we were somehow able to survive - would the sky look a lot different than it does from here?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2004, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392/22 "2004-02-24T09:10:52Z")
In the center of the Galaxy, there’d be a heck of a lot more stars in the sky. At a bare minimum, the entire sky would look like the band of the Milky Way does from here. But I suspect that it’d be a lot more than that, yet. I seem to recall that the average distance between stars in the core is about a half a lightyear, so that would mean that you’d see about 512 times as many stars, and they’d each be on average 64 times brighter than those seen from Earth.
And on Mercury, you wouldn’t need anywhere near SPF a million (much less a googol). At a first approximation, you’d only need around SPF 135, which I’ve actually seen in Army surplus first-aid kits.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2004, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392/23 "2004-02-24T14:31:47Z")
You’d need a lot more than that.
IIRC, Mercury has barely any atmosphere, and no ozone layer.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-sun-look-like-viewed-from-mercury/230392/24 "2004-02-24T15:47:43Z")
> [@DarrenS](#):
>
> **Squink** - thanks for the link; that’s exactly what I wanted. If I want to see the sun or other bodies \*as I would see them with the naked eye were I standing on the surface of Saturn (I know, I know…), to what should I set the field of view?
Looking elsewhere in **Squink’s** link turned up [this shot](http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/art/pix/mercury.jpg) of the Sun in Mercury’s sky.
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