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Since the sun is white does that make it every color or no color?
Question Date: 2018-05-24
Answer 1:

The sun has "every color". The color of light carries a different frequency, and the sun light has the entire spectrum of frequencies, meaning it has all colors of light. But only a small range of light frequencies is visible to human eyes, from red (lowest visible frequency) to purple (highest visible frequency).


Answer 2:

Since sunlight is light, and therefore additive, it has every color as a component, as well as ultraviolet and infrared (waves that are less energetic than red light).


Answer 3:

Nice question. All the colors of the rainbow combine to make the white light of the sun. Or, if you put a prism in the path of sunlight, you can see all the colors of the rainbow in a spot on the wall where the light coming out of the prism hits the wall.

You can also project the 3 Primary Colors of lights onto a screen. Where all 3 colors overlap, you see white light. It surprises me to see all the colors mix to give white light in the center.

Here's a link for learning more about mixing colored lights:
color addition

Paints [pigments] are the opposite - if you mix all the paint [pigment] colors together, you get something very dark.

Here's a link that shows the Primary Colors of both lights and pigments:
primary colors


Answer 4:

Sunlight contains all colors. You know this because when you look at a rainbow, which is reflected sunlight, you can see the full spectrum of colors.


Answer 5:

The sun emits an electromagnetic spectrum covering a range of wavelengths including the visible region as well as the ultraviolet (UV) and Infrared (IR) regions. So the sun emits light of every color, but not with equal intensity. The emission spectrum of the sun (along with other stars) is described very well by what is called “blackbody radiation.” In physics a blackbody is a perfect or “ideal” radiator.

An ideal blackbody will emit a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation whose intensity at a given wavelength depends on the temperature of the object. The temperature of the sun is around 5780 Kelvin. Here, you can see a comparison between the electromagnetic radiation from the sun compared to an ideal blackbody radiator at 5778 Kelvin solar spectrum .

You can see from the figure that the sun emits electromagnetic radiation across the entire region of the visible spectrum as well as the UV and Infrared regions with a peak intensity around 500 nanometers. You can also see that the Earth’s atmosphere has a large effect on the electromagnetic radiation that we observe at sea level. In particular, ozone (O3) in the atmosphere absorbs UV light, and water vapor in the atmosphere as well as carbon dioxide absorb light in the IR region. Additionally, particles in the atmosphere scatter some of the light through a process called Rayleigh scattering , which is the reason the sky appears blue and the sun appears yellow.



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