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A bit embarrassed to ask this, but could someone ELI5 - why does it look yellow? Or rather, why is this a common perception? Why is this the colour kids reach f
by lordgrenville 6y ago
A bit embarrassed to ask this, but could someone ELI5 - why does it look yellow? Or rather, why is this a common perception? Why is this the colour kids reach for to draw the sun?
- AprilArcus 6y agoSunlight shifts reddish as the sun sets and its blue light is Raleigh-scattered away by a thicker slice of atmosphere. This also makes it dim enough to look at directly. At its zenith, when the sun is whitest, it can't be naked eye observed, so the balance of subjective impressions is formed by late-day observations when its color is shifted toward yellow/orange/red.
- fallingfrog 6y agoVery fancy way of saying “because people only look at it at sunset”.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LegitShady 6y agoGreen Blue and violet wavelengths scattered by the atmosphere
- lathiat 6y agoSee here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what-color-sun https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what-color-sun
- recursivecaveat 6y agoWell all the other children and past children have drawn it yellow, so it is a part of the culture of children's drawings. The culture really does matter, for example young children in different cultures draw human figures quite differently. As someone else noted in these comments, you can't draw white on white paper well, and yellow is the closest thing really in a box of crayons, so that probably has a large effect as well.