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Comment on The colour of the Sun is white

FirstWizardZorander@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Wow, that’s really interesting! I had no idea that the atmosphere worked as a diffuser for only a small part of the spectrum like that

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Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
xkcd.com/1145/

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theamigan@lemmy.dynatron.me ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Rayleigh scattering

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scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yep the atmosphere is transparent to all colors of light except blue. It doesn’t absorb blue light but it does get scattered. That’s why no matter where you look in the sky, you see blue. Because the gasses there are scattering blue light in all directions, including toward you.

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- vector_zero@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Isn’t that because blue is higher frequency and therefore refracts more than the other colors?
  
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  - scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Good question. No idea. If higher frequency correlates with more scattering, then UV should also be scattered, right? Or is it something about blue visible light being just right for our kid of gases? Interesting question since that mix has changed over time. Perhaps the sky was another color during life’s early years. Is that why they’re called the Cyanobacteria? Because they turned the sky blue?
    
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    vector_zero@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    My understanding is that higher frequency == more refraction, visible or not. So in theory, x and gamma radiation should also experience more refraction. Though I wonder at what point (it any) something too high energy can somehow “pierce” through a medium rather than refracting.
    
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