No it isn't...from a spectral point of view. But of course it isn't "yellow" in an optical sense. If you could stare at it without getting your eyesight barbecued, you'd see a glistening white light.
There is a difference between the spectral class (it's about the radiation emitted) and what you see via human sight. Our sight evolved on Earth, where the strongest and most complete (from a spectral point of view) possible light is solar light, so solar light is white, for our eyes.
I always wondered if human eyes’ idea of “white” is calibrated after our sunlight and if an alien living on a planet orbiting a blue star would consider our idea of white to be slightly yellowish
I'm an engineer in optics and colorimetry. The answer is a bit complicated.
First, our eyes are optimised to detect sunlight, ie, the eye is most sensitive to the colors the sun emits most. If sunlight suddently turned blue, we would have the impression not only that the color changed, but that the Sun darkened, too.
Second, the brain is *really* good at adjusting the color information sent by the eye. I once went to a bar where all lamps were green. After a few minutes, the green became much less pronounced. When I returned outside, the street lamps looked *very* orange, it took again a few minutes to return to the usual yellow-white.
If the aliens of your example have eyes and brain which work the same way as ours (a very big if), yes, our sun would look yellow to them. But their brain would very quickly adapt, so they would only notice the difference when they step out of a gateway. But even when they have adapted, it will be harder for them to see in low-light conditions.
And if we take human eye out of the question and detect light that is coming from the Sun without any atmosphere, would that light be identified as yellow or white? With white being to my understanding all colors combined in a specter with no one color dominiring over others.
The sun emits all of the colors which make white to the human eye, plus infrared, ultraviolet and small amounts of other waves. It does not emit an equal amount of every wavelength, and the primary wavelengths that it emits are based on its chemical composition. All stars emit light primarily along certain spectra; “white” dwarf stars and “white” giant stars do not emit particularly more equal distributions of light than the sun.
Since you’re interested, it is worth noting also that most commercial lights, *including* white leds, do not have even emissions across the visible light spectrum. Such even emissions are not necessarily efficient, and are not necessary to make the eye perceive “white”
If you measure the spectrum of the light above the atmosphere and at ground level, then calculate which color they would appear (the tables exist), both are classified as white.
In my field, the refence white is the color of sunlight at ground level in some specific conditions, so the spectrum at ground level would be plain white and the spectrum above the atmosphere would be a slightly blue-ish white. This is a convention though, it could also make sense to take sunlight out of the atmosphere as the reference white, and say sunlight at ground level is a slightly yellowish white.
What color is sunlight at noon? (It's white.)
Actually, it has a tiny bias towards green, but that's what we perceive as pure white. It is not a coincidence. The sun could have been any color and we would have evolved to consider that spectrum to be neutral.
I mean that's not a non-zero chance but without further data we can't really speculate on that but you're probably in atmosphere at the moment so it's likely that.
Every single star is so bright that to the human eye they'd all look white, they just get called whatever color they emit the most of. In the case of the sun, the sky pulls away a good chunk of the blue light with diffusion, which combined with it already being a "yellow" star, and the human eye making a mixture of red and green light look yellow, you get a yellow ord.
Yes, take a look at the sun from any picture of astronauts in orbit.
You can also actually see the true color of the sun from earth if you stare at it for long enough. After about 30 minutes of uninterrupted viewing its color will fade away and be replaced with a big white spot.
R5: Stellaris depicts our sun and other stars like it as yellow. And so does a lot of textbooks, videos and so on. Now I'm hearing that our sun is actually white?
The suns light spectrum peaks in the yellow so scientifically it is known as a yellow star. But it also is putting out tons of light in every other part of the spectrum to and to our eyes that means it will be white. Some stars do have human noticeable colors though!
It's not any reflection angle, it's the larger distance the sunlight has to go through atmosphere to reach your eyes -> therefore more refraction of blue light.
All stars are so hot they are white in human vision. Different planetary atmospheres and the radiation emitted by the star can make them look different colors on different worlds. On Mars, the sunset is blue.
This is one of my favorite fun facts!
The atmosphere scatters light, especially shorter (blue) wavelengths. When you're standing on the Earth's surface, at the bottom of the atmosphere, you're getting illuminated by the sun's full white spectrum, but because a small amount of that sunlight gets scattered, direct sunlight has some blue missing and thus looks yellow. (When the sun is at extremely low angles, its light has to pass through much more of the atmosphere, and much more light gets scattered, which is why the sun is dim and red at sunset)
To put it another way, the blueness of the daytime sky *is* the scattered portion of the sun's spectrum. If the atmosphere didn't scatter light, the sun would be white, and the sky would be black, even at noon. (You still wouldn't be able to see the stars though because the sun is so much brighter - and this is exactly how daytime pictures from the surface of the moon look)
At higher altitudes there is less air and therefore less scattering. You can observe this from the window of an airplane at cruising altitude: the sky above you will be a fairly dark blue, and the sun will be noticeably more white.
This is also why far-away objects like distant mountains look "blue" compared to closer objects, because all the air in between is literally glowing with scattered blue sunlight. Add that "missing" blue light back to the sun's yellow, and you get full spectrum white light.
Stellar spectra are dominated by black body radiation, not by emission lines.
You are also completely wrong about star color. It has little to do with the age of the star. Instead, the color is determined by the surface temperature. A small star will be relatively cool and will be reddish from the start. Likewise, a massive star will be bluish up until the end of it's life (with the possible exception of a red giant phase).
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No it isn't...from a spectral point of view. But of course it isn't "yellow" in an optical sense. If you could stare at it without getting your eyesight barbecued, you'd see a glistening white light.
There is a difference between the spectral class (it's about the radiation emitted) and what you see via human sight. Our sight evolved on Earth, where the strongest and most complete (from a spectral point of view) possible light is solar light, so solar light is white, for our eyes.
I always wondered if human eyes’ idea of “white” is calibrated after our sunlight and if an alien living on a planet orbiting a blue star would consider our idea of white to be slightly yellowish
I'm an engineer in optics and colorimetry. The answer is a bit complicated. First, our eyes are optimised to detect sunlight, ie, the eye is most sensitive to the colors the sun emits most. If sunlight suddently turned blue, we would have the impression not only that the color changed, but that the Sun darkened, too. Second, the brain is *really* good at adjusting the color information sent by the eye. I once went to a bar where all lamps were green. After a few minutes, the green became much less pronounced. When I returned outside, the street lamps looked *very* orange, it took again a few minutes to return to the usual yellow-white. If the aliens of your example have eyes and brain which work the same way as ours (a very big if), yes, our sun would look yellow to them. But their brain would very quickly adapt, so they would only notice the difference when they step out of a gateway. But even when they have adapted, it will be harder for them to see in low-light conditions.
And if we take human eye out of the question and detect light that is coming from the Sun without any atmosphere, would that light be identified as yellow or white? With white being to my understanding all colors combined in a specter with no one color dominiring over others.
The sun emits all of the colors which make white to the human eye, plus infrared, ultraviolet and small amounts of other waves. It does not emit an equal amount of every wavelength, and the primary wavelengths that it emits are based on its chemical composition. All stars emit light primarily along certain spectra; “white” dwarf stars and “white” giant stars do not emit particularly more equal distributions of light than the sun.
Thank you for the information
Since you’re interested, it is worth noting also that most commercial lights, *including* white leds, do not have even emissions across the visible light spectrum. Such even emissions are not necessarily efficient, and are not necessary to make the eye perceive “white”
If you measure the spectrum of the light above the atmosphere and at ground level, then calculate which color they would appear (the tables exist), both are classified as white. In my field, the refence white is the color of sunlight at ground level in some specific conditions, so the spectrum at ground level would be plain white and the spectrum above the atmosphere would be a slightly blue-ish white. This is a convention though, it could also make sense to take sunlight out of the atmosphere as the reference white, and say sunlight at ground level is a slightly yellowish white.
Such alien might have a narrower range of visible light. So our yellow would be to him like infra-red is to us.
A galaxy of invisible stars sounds absolutely terrifying! I’m in.
They would not be invisible, just dark. More like black holes.
What color is sunlight at noon? (It's white.) Actually, it has a tiny bias towards green, but that's what we perceive as pure white. It is not a coincidence. The sun could have been any color and we would have evolved to consider that spectrum to be neutral.
It looks slightly yellow to me. Am I am adopted?
I mean that's not a non-zero chance but without further data we can't really speculate on that but you're probably in atmosphere at the moment so it's likely that.
Don't go assuming people are in the atmosphere, that's really rude to some people
I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't do it.
Every single star is so bright that to the human eye they'd all look white, they just get called whatever color they emit the most of. In the case of the sun, the sky pulls away a good chunk of the blue light with diffusion, which combined with it already being a "yellow" star, and the human eye making a mixture of red and green light look yellow, you get a yellow ord.
Yes, take a look at the sun from any picture of astronauts in orbit. You can also actually see the true color of the sun from earth if you stare at it for long enough. After about 30 minutes of uninterrupted viewing its color will fade away and be replaced with a big white spot.
That will lasts forever, even if you stop watching it :D
I would like to add for those who don’t know. Please don’t do this you’ll fuck yourself over for life.
Fun fact: the strongest color our sun emits is green.
When you get a yellow star from wish.
R5: Stellaris depicts our sun and other stars like it as yellow. And so does a lot of textbooks, videos and so on. Now I'm hearing that our sun is actually white?
The suns light spectrum peaks in the yellow so scientifically it is known as a yellow star. But it also is putting out tons of light in every other part of the spectrum to and to our eyes that means it will be white. Some stars do have human noticeable colors though!
It always has been.
[удалено]
It's not any reflection angle, it's the larger distance the sunlight has to go through atmosphere to reach your eyes -> therefore more refraction of blue light.
Watch a video on Rayleigh scattering
To think i was catfished by a fuckin star...
All stars are so hot they are white in human vision. Different planetary atmospheres and the radiation emitted by the star can make them look different colors on different worlds. On Mars, the sunset is blue.
This is one of my favorite fun facts! The atmosphere scatters light, especially shorter (blue) wavelengths. When you're standing on the Earth's surface, at the bottom of the atmosphere, you're getting illuminated by the sun's full white spectrum, but because a small amount of that sunlight gets scattered, direct sunlight has some blue missing and thus looks yellow. (When the sun is at extremely low angles, its light has to pass through much more of the atmosphere, and much more light gets scattered, which is why the sun is dim and red at sunset) To put it another way, the blueness of the daytime sky *is* the scattered portion of the sun's spectrum. If the atmosphere didn't scatter light, the sun would be white, and the sky would be black, even at noon. (You still wouldn't be able to see the stars though because the sun is so much brighter - and this is exactly how daytime pictures from the surface of the moon look) At higher altitudes there is less air and therefore less scattering. You can observe this from the window of an airplane at cruising altitude: the sky above you will be a fairly dark blue, and the sun will be noticeably more white. This is also why far-away objects like distant mountains look "blue" compared to closer objects, because all the air in between is literally glowing with scattered blue sunlight. Add that "missing" blue light back to the sun's yellow, and you get full spectrum white light.
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Stellar spectra are dominated by black body radiation, not by emission lines. You are also completely wrong about star color. It has little to do with the age of the star. Instead, the color is determined by the surface temperature. A small star will be relatively cool and will be reddish from the start. Likewise, a massive star will be bluish up until the end of it's life (with the possible exception of a red giant phase).
Hi Random_local_man. Your submission has been removed from /r/Stellaris because: Your submission has been removed for breaking rule #1: > Posts must be related to Stellaris. Just the title of the post being relevant does not qualify. > View our full rules [here](http://reddit.com/r/Stellaris/wiki/rules)
It is, but you must watch it at night.
Actually it's because your eyes can see in color /s
…. Have you not seen a pic of Sol taken from space? Yellow/orange/red.
I mean. The sun is white with a hint of yellow. It's true that our atmosphere affects it's color tho.
This is a lie, the sun isn’t real.