What is the color of the sun? More and more people are sure that she changed color when we were children - voila! news

2023-05-16T21:07:43.310Z

Highlights: A Twitter user tweeted a picture of the white sun and reminded us all that it used to look different. Many believe that the sun has changed color over the past few decades. "The sun used to be yellow. All right? The sun is no longer yellow. It's white now," film director Jay Weidner said in 2017, linking the change to the chemtrile theory, an unproven conspiracy theory in which airplanes spray harmful chemicals or biologics and hide it from the public.

Was our sun yellower when we were kids? A Twitter user tweeted a picture of the white sun and reminded us all that it used to look different. Is it? Here's the answer

This is what a year on the surface of the Sun (NASA) looks like

What is the color of the sun: yellow or white? No, this is not just another sophisticated illusion of colors, but a scientific discussion trying to understand whether the color of the sun has changed since we were children. Many believe that the sun has changed color over the past few decades, when it used to be yellow and now it is white.

The person who started this discussion (it turns out again) is Twitter user Jackie DeVie, who claimed that she, too, was surprised to find that the sun was less yellow and white, less round and more egg-like, than when she was a child. She tweeted: "I tell a man in his 20s that the sun was yellow when I was a child and he laughs. The last time he saw a yellow sun was on Teletubbies. Here is the sun now. White and oddly shaped. What does it look like from where you are?"

Before we continue - what is the color of the sun?

yellow

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Alongside this text, she attached an image of a bright midday sun, white and shapeless like giant gnocchi. One user replied that the photo was not of high quality, so she attached a clearer picture alongside the text: "That's right, so I asked my son to go up the balcony and take a better picture. He came back however."

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The tweet that opened the discussion:

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And a better picture:

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As we noted - this theory is not new. In fact, this is a long-standing conspiracy theory. "The sun used to be yellow. All right? The sun is no longer yellow. It's white now," film director Jay Weidner said in 2017, linking the change to the chemtrile theory, an unproven conspiracy theory in which airplanes spray harmful chemicals or biologics and hide it from the public. He added: "I'm old enough to tell you: it used to be yellow and anyone my age will attest that the sun was definitely yellow."

A quick search of the subreddit regarding theories related to the Mandela effect shows that the yellow sun has been up for debate for many years. "I miss it so much!" a user replied to a person interested in the yellow sun. He said: "The sun was friendly. She warmed us up so nicely. We used to put a metal tray under our chin to tan our necks and faces—and it could be done without dazzling" (Also, there has been a nearly 53 percent increase in skin cancer diagnoses in the U.S. since 1999, when people sunbathed with oil and reflective trays in the era of the "friendly sun").

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That's how we remember her (Photo: Screenshot, BBC)

The sun is white. Always has been

So has the friendly yellow sun really turned into a white, blinding, burning sun? The answer is no.

Latest in space magazine explained: "The sun is actually white, but it appears yellow because of Earth's atmosphere." Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly confirmed this. If so, why does she appear as white in a photo that shared a dub? There is also an answer to this: the sun emits light that contains all wavelengths, including all colors in the visible spectrum – which is why we perceive it as white. When the sun hits our atmosphere, light in the blue spectrum is scattered more efficiently than red light. When less blue light hits our eyeballs, we perceive the sun as a slightly yellow color. The more light has to pass through the atmosphere—say at sunrise and sunset—the more blue light is scattered, making the sun appear yellower or redder. Conversely, when the sun is directly above us, it will appear whiter, because blue light has less atmosphere to diffuse through it to reach our eyes.

Former astronaut Scott Kelly confirms

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The belief that the sun was yellower when we were children probably stems from nostalgia, a tendency to remember a beautiful sunset rather than just a sun on a normal day. Maria Weber, assistant professor of physics and director of the planetarium at Delta State University, said she encounters such claims circulating online all the time: "People cling to these ideas, without keeping up with the science. "I think people remember things wrong, especially when compared to when we were kids. The idea of the Yellow Sun is, in part, definitely an effect of nostalgia and communication. When I was a child, all kinds of TV shows or toys or school activities described the sun as yellow. I'm not an expert on child development, but I guess we also give kids yellow pencils to draw the sun because a white pencil on white paper won't see anything."

Childhood memory? (Photo: ShutterStock)

She added: "As anyone who has been outside at different times of the day can attest, the sun does change colour from sunrise to sunset. The view of the sun at sunrise/sunset is probably what many people remember and imprinted in their minds as the 'yellow sun'. When it is low in the sky, its light passes through more of the atmosphere and makes it appear yellow, orange or even red. At noon, however, light passes through a thinner atmosphere, so the many wavelengths are less scattered and appear together as white light. Levels of smog or dust in the air can also change the perceived color of the sun."

She concluded: "The sun emits many different wavelengths, or colors, across the entire spectrum – in colors that we can see and those that we can't. In fact, it emits greenish color most strongly – but when those colors come together, what we see. He's white."

Yes, if anything, pedants can say that our sun is green, because definitely greener than yellow. "The sun actually emits energy at all wavelengths from radio to gamma beam," NASA explained ahead of the 2017 eclipse, "but it emits most of its energy at around 500 nanometers, which is close to greenish-blue light. So you could say that the sun is greenish-blue! However, because the sun emits all wavelengths and not just blue-green, when this spectrum hits our eyeballs, we still see it as white."

Here's the full explanation:

And what about its shape?

So no - the theory that the color of the sun is becoming less yellow is not true. But what about the gnocchi shape in question? Sorry to announce that the sun has not changed its shape either. "Smartphone cameras can do weird things especially when shooting bright objects like the sun," Weber added, and depending on the time of day, "the sun can look oval-like at sunrise/sunset because of the refraction in our Earth's atmosphere. Refraction is the bending of light when it penetrates different materials. When the sun is low on the horizon, light again passes through a larger part of our atmosphere, allowing for a greater effect of refraction."

Many scientists confirm that the sun has not changed its color or shape and ask you to stop staring at it. "Bottom line: You should never look directly at the sun without adequate eye protection," said Joseph Lazio, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology. It is enough to look at the light reflected from the sun, say from a mirror directing sunlight to the wall. You will see that the reflected light will be white."