What Color is the Sun?
The Sun is actually white. While it may appear yellow, orange, or red from Earth, this is due to atmospheric scattering. In space, without the interference of our atmosphere, the Sun's true color is revealed.
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Atmospheric Scattering: The Earth's atmosphere scatters shorter wavelengths of light (blue and violet) more than longer wavelengths (red and yellow). This is why the sky appears blue. At sunrise and sunset, when the sunlight travels through a longer path in the atmosphere, the shorter wavelengths are scattered away, leaving the longer wavelengths to dominate, resulting in the yellow, orange, or red hues we often see.
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NASA Imagery: Many NASA images show the Sun in various colors, but these are often false-color images designed to highlight specific features or temperatures on the Sun's surface. These colors don't represent the Sun's actual color. For instance, the Sun's surface temperature of around 5,800K corresponds to a peak emission in the blue-green region of the spectrum; this is noted in the NASA eclipse website (https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what-color-sun). However, all colors are emitted, resulting in white light.
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Scientific Consensus: NASA scientists and numerous sources confirm that the Sun emits all colors of light, which combine to appear white. This is corroborated by images taken from space (https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/). An ex-NASA astronaut even confirmed this fact (https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/the-sun-is-actually-white-ex-nasa-astronaut-confirms-space-fact-3340514).
In Summary
The Sun's color is white. The perception of different colors from Earth is due to atmospheric effects. NASA's use of color in imagery is often for scientific interpretation and not a reflection of the Sun's inherent color.
