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MrRage | 11 years ago

Sun is actually white... which is why you see a all the colors in a rainbow. I know Superman lied to you. :)

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trhway|11 years ago

Sun's radiation peak energy at sea level is around 500-600nm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#mediaviewer/File:Solar...

which is green

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#mediaviewer/File:Linear_v...

That is why grass/trees are green - they consume only the edges of the spectrum (about 10-15% of the total sunlight coming through) bouncing the rest back.

With respect to the original point about orange being average color of Internet photos - keep in mind that most photos are produced by digital CCD cameras which are more sensitive to orange/red than green/blue.

http://www.gitthailand.com/image/ccd-spectrum.jpg

tgb|11 years ago

Why does that explain why plants are generally green? If you had told me that the energy peak was at X wavelength, I would have guessed that plants absorbed most of that wavelength in order to not be wasteful rather than preferentially reflecting that wavelength.

MrRage|11 years ago

Interesting. I guess it actually emits all sorts of frequencies of light visible or not, but Superman is still wrong. :)