Tuesday, February 7, 2012

If the sun were a blue star, would the colors of the sunset an sunrise be different?

I've been trying to find an answer to this quest as a reference for a fictional world that I intend to use in one of my projects. If our sun, which is a yellow star, was actually a blue star would the colors in the sky of the sunrise and sunset be different? How would they be different if they were?If the sun were a blue star, would the colors of the sunset an sunrise be different?No not really. First off, sun's radiate as black bodies. This means they emit light in every color. Even though our sun is considered yellow, it still radiates the colors red, blue, purple, green and everything else. The reason we see the sunsets, sunrises, and they sky in the colors we do is because of how the various colors emitted from the sun interact with our atmosphere.



Our sky is blue because blue light scatters more randomly. Light on the red side of the spectrum doesn't scatter so much. So if you have a bunch of red and blue light hitting our atmosphere, you will get a fixed amount of red light that will come at you directly from the sun, but you'll get blue from all different directions which ends up overpowering any red you see.



In sunrises and sunsets, the reds overpower the blues. The colors all have to do with the atmospheric content rather than the color of the sun. If the sun was blue, it would still emit reds and yellows and greens and everything else. So if you wanted the sunrises and sunsets to appear a different color, you would have to explain it by a different atmospheric composition and structure.If the sun were a blue star, would the colors of the sunset an sunrise be different?Yes they would...

My guess is that at sunrise, the sky will consist of a bright bluish, white color. At noon, it'll only be either bright blue, or white at some times. At sunset, it'll probably consist of a dark bluish color.

Edit: I admit that I didn't consider the atmospheric distortion effects.If the sun were a blue star, would the colors of the sunset an sunrise be different?Dont know! We wouldnt be here to look

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