Date : July 2018 (last update : Oct 2020)
Sun color in space : Fictional colors vs factual white
Note : I strongly believe that all school / college students should be exposed to this article because formal academics (including a degree in astronomy/astrophysics) does a very poor job of educating this basic science.
Wrong Sun Color Everywhere
The sun's true color in space being white, is school grade basic science (glass prism experiment). Yet, schools, colleges, scientific papers, media & Hollywood films often reject a factual white sun & stubbornly depict it in fictional colors like pale yellow, yellow, orange or red in visuals of solar system or sun in space.
This is as blatantly wrong as a flat earth depiction. Factual white sun is shown rarely, while multi-colored fiction is shown very often as science.
Shared below is some basic science education about the sun being white :
Below : Some rare visuals of white sun in space.
Astronauts on the space station or moon would see a pure white sun against the black space.
So, why are the wrong sun colors are so persistent ? Why doesn't the yellow sun myth die ? To the best of my knowledge, there are only 3 culprits & they all are inexcusable :
- ignorance (due to poor education, across the world)
- mental conditioning (due to repeated, prolonged exposure to wrong, unscientific visuals right from childhood; even scientists are not immune to it)
- science denialism (despite being corrected, many people, including experts, still depict fiction, rejecting a factual white sun)
Below : Some commonly seen wrong sun colors.
To see how deep rooted the myth of yellow sun is, just search online for images of the solar system. You will rarely find a factually accurate white sun. Even scientific literature shows nonsense depictions (visit the link above). The white sun examples shared here are rare and it took me a lot of time to collect them. I have come across many yellow sun defenders who have never even seen a white sun in solar system visuals — a clear failure of visual science communication. By beginning this article with accurate imagery, I want to provide the essential 'visual reset' needed to correct this systemic misunderstanding.
Illogical Justifications For Wrong Sun Colors
On social media, when I criticize the wrong sun colors, people give many justifications for it, all of them wrong of course. Listed below are some of the common ones & my counter to them :
- Yellow dwarf star
- Ground perspective
- Solar spectrum
- False-color imagery
Yellow dwarf star : The sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star & hence, a yellow sun depiction is factual.
While the sun is categorized as a G-type "yellow dwarf" star, based on its temperature, this refers to spectral classification, not its visual color to the human eye. The color of the sun is still white !
Star depiction is the problem, not star classification, although the latter could have avoided colors in their names since it confuses so many, including scientists. Since solar system visuals show planets in the visible spectrum, white is the only correct color for the sun in it. Every other color is wrong.
Extracts from Wikipedia on G-type stars : "The term yellow dwarf is a misnomer, because G-type stars actually range in color from white, for more luminous types like the Sun ... The Sun is in fact white ..."
What is truly shocking is that I have come across PhD holding scientists on X / Twitter who were not aware of such a basic science & gave the yellow dwarf justification ! They really thought the sun is yellow.
Ground perspective : The sun looks yellow from earth’s surface & that is why it is depicted as yellow in solar system visuals.
Yes, I understand Rayleigh scattering by the Earth's atmosphere but that is a poor justification for misrepresenting the sun as yellow in solar system visuals, which clearly is not being seen through the Earth's atmosphere but from space. This argument is so illogical that it only reveals the sheer lack of intelligence of the people saying this.
Besides, if ground perspective were to be the basis for teaching science, then we should be depicting the planets & a yellow sun revolving around a flat Earth because that is exactly how it looks to a person on the ground. But we don't do it because it would be stupid. So, lets also stop the stupidity of a yellow sun in solar system visuals/models.
Refusal to accept evidence & cling on to outdated ideas is called science denialism. And the scientific community & the media are guilty of this. Despite my repeated corrections on social media, they still stubbornly depict nonsense because they don't see anything wrong with it, just like flat earthers don't see anything wrong with their visuals.
Solar spectrum : Yellow is the strongest wavelength in the solar spectrum. Hence, yellow depiction is factual.
People saying this are totally unaware of how wrong this is. Actually, green or blue-green is the strongest wavelength in the solar spectrum. Anyway, if the logic of depicting the sun by the strongest wavelength is correct, then how come we don't see a green sun or a blue-green sun in any solar system visual/model ?
The argument of choosing the strongest wavelength to represent the sun color in space, is like choosing an Xray pic of your skeleton to represent you on the passport or identity card, since bones are the strongest part of your body ! But thankfully, nobody does foolish things like that. While spectroscopy is a useful tool, using it to establish the color of anything is a ridiculously wrong approach & the final conclusion (according to the sun logic) is that everything is represented by just one color !
The rainbow colors are a sub-component of the sun's white light, just like bones are a sub-component of our body, and seeds are a sub-component of the fruit. The sub-component is not directly visible and cannot represent the main entity, by any logic. The fruit, the body & the sun, need a photograph to represent it, taken in the visible spectrum, as is done to represent the planets, moons, asteroids & comets. All the planets are depicted the way they appear in visible spectrum, to our eyes. But when it comes to depicting the sun, why do people adopt silly arguments, like flat earthers ?
Besides, a solar spectrum is a graph & not a color. It is wrong to assign a color to the sun, based on an interpretation of a graph. Why are such gimmicks needed when it is clear that the sun is white ? Also, the people who argue that the sun's true color is green, pale yellow, yellow, orange or red, are indirectly saying that those colors get magically split into rainbow colors with a glass prism - revealing their poor knowledge of basic physics.
Spectrum analysis is a very lame justification for misrepresenting the sun color. In the spectrum of every planet, some color will always dominate but it will be wrong to depict all the 8 planets as mere flat colors by taking the strongest color to represent the whole planet and rejecting all other colors & patterns. Then it will be another fiction. So, deciding the sun color based on the strongest wavelength is nonsense.
False-color imagery : The colorful suns that you have often seen in space visuals, are artificially colored, invisible / visible wavelengths of sun's radiation. They are fine for sun study but in solar system visuals/models, the sun needs to be a factual white.
The inability of so many people to differentiate between fact & fiction is truly shocking ! Also, it speaks volumes about the pathetic quality of basic science education world wide.
Feel free to comment, agree / disagree
& even post links relevant to the topic.
***
I agree with you, but suggest valium or a good bourbon. Cheers, and thanks for a great read!
ReplyDelete