Why Has The Sun Become White/Brighter/Hotter?

[lewisj]

I used to remember the sun being yellow during midday, but now it is white.<br /><br />Not only it is white, but also brighter and hotter.<br /><br />Is this going to get worse over the next years?<br /><br /><br />Your Opinion Is Appreciated<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Lewis<br />

 

[contracommando]

Most stars like our own burn brighter as time progresses. Our own star is approximately 30% brighter now than it was when the Earth first formed. In the future (over millions and billions of years) this process will continue.

 

[harmonicaman]

It's just my guess, but this may be a normal result of your eyes getting older and losing just a smidgeon of their color acuity......<br /><br />Solution: Buy a nice pair of yellow tinted aviator sunglasses and find a good nursing home... <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

 

[bobw]

Depending on where you live and how long ago you remember yellow, it could be because air pollution has decreased. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[contracommando]

<font color="orange"><b>It's just my guess, but this may be a normal result of your eyes getting older and losing just a smidgeon of their color acuity...... <br /><br />Solution: Buy a nice pair of yellow tinted aviator sunglasses and find a good nursing home…</b><img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /></font><br /><br />“In 1978 the astrophysicist Michael Hart performed detailed calculations and reached a stunning conclusion. <font color="yellow">His work included the well know fact that the sun becomes slightly brighter with time.</font>About 4 billion years ago, the sun was about 30% fainter than at present.”<br /><br />Rare Earth, page 18. Peter D. Ward (professor of astronomy and a member of the National Academy of Sciences) and Donald Brownlee (professor of Geological Sciences and Curator of Paleontology at the University of Washington in Seattle). <br /><br />“In the solar system, the HZs have definable widths; <font color="yellow">as the sun constantly gets brighter,</font>they move outward.”<br /><br />Page 20<br /><br />“This gradual brightening causes the habitable zones to migrate ever outward”<br /><br />Page 25<br /><br />****My suggestion/solution: Read a book before you open your mouth to insult someone when <b><u>obviously</u></b> don’t know what you're talking about <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

 

[nexium]

Bobw gave the best answer unless your memory is remembering yellow you never saw. We are reasonably sure the sun has not brightened, nor whitened more than a few parts per million even if you are 99 years old. Neil

 

[harmonicaman]

I agree that member Bobw probably gave the best response, but I still stand by my opinion that normal aging processes degrade visual acuity and this occurs at <i>many times the rate</i> of any "Sun brightening" over time.<br /><br />As people grow older, they need increasingly sharper contrasts and sharper edges around an object to differentiate it from its background.<br /><br />The ability to identify color diminishes with age. Colors that are close to each other in hue, such as blue and green or red and orange, are most difficult to distinguish.<br /><br />As a natural part of the aging process, the human eye begins to perceive colors differently because aging results in the yellowing and darkening of the crystalline lens and cornea, degenerative effects that are also accompanied by a shrinking of the pupil size. <br /><br />With yellowing, shorter wavelengths of visible light are absorbed, so blue hues appear darker. As a consequence, elderly individuals often experience difficulty discriminating between colors that differ primarily in their blue content, such as blue and gray or red and purple. <br /><br />At age 60, when compared to the visual efficiency of a 20-year old, only 33 percent of the light incident on the cornea reaches the photoreceptors in the retina. This value drops to around 12.5 percent by the mid-70s.<br /><br />(Gleaned from various web resources.)

 

[contracommando]

The intent was to present a scientific fact, not to explain what he thinks he sees; like if someone said that they thought the moon was getting smaller and I said (correctly) that the moon is slowly moving away from the Earth - and in two billion years it will be too far away to stabilize the Earth's axis of rotation.

 

[mikeemmert]

I think YOU gave the best response, harmonicaman. I have noticed the same thing LewisJ noticed, but I have also noticed the gray hairs...<br /><br />The pollution levels of where I live now are a little less than when I was a kid; that was in New Mexico, where there is more windblown dust. Now I'm in Austin, Texas. The main pollution here is hot air from blowhard politicians.

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>“In 1978 the astrophysicist Michael Hart performed detailed calculations and reached a stunning conclusion. His work included the well know fact that the sun becomes slightly brighter with time. About 4 billion years ago, the sun was about 30% fainter than at present.” <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I think it varies more over a short period of time that the gradual brightening over the millenia is not ordinarily significant during one's lifetime.<br /><br />The Sun's output is remarkably steady, but still somewhat variable. Overall, it varies on a period of about eleven years, due to changes in its magnetic fields. (This is similar to the Earth's periodic pole shifting, but on a larger and also much faster scale -- the Sun's poles flip every eleven years!) We are currently moving towards solar minimum, when the Sun has the least number of sunspots. Heat output varies during the solar cycle, with it generally being hottest during solar maximum. However, that's not universal, and the Sun has probably been both hotter and cooler than it is now. Like any star, it is very dynamic. Solar output may in fact be partially responsible for global warming, although it's very difficult to get historical data on solar output going back more than a few decades.<br /><br />Fortunately, our Sun isn't hugely variable. There are some very dramatic variable stars (including some special ones called Cepheids that can be used to measure distances by the regularity of their variation) which couldn't possibly have habitable planets.<br /><br />Note: I'm going from memory, and need more coffee, so look this stuff up and make sure it's right before quoting it anywhere. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> (And if I'm wrong, please tell me!) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[bender007]

I noticed it too but right know I heard the sun Is pretty active and causing solar storms which probably makes it hotter cause of the high gas release and some of it burns up