Thread: How does sun an other stars look from space?

When observing sun from earth it looks ultra bright and does not reveal any details at least when looking it with eyes only. but about every picture of stars painted or photoshopped is a flaming red or blue lava ball. if i would enter to space and watch sun from up there, would it look as it does from surface of earth or would it be like the ones in pictures, flaming lava ball?

Here are some photos of the sun from space: Images of the Sun from Space taken by NASA

The sun in space looks like how we see on earth (yellow), but is brighter.

(the picture of sun from NASA is in "false-color". As in "not-real-color". They are using "false-color" for conducting experiment, and to see stuff that is invisible to naked eye.)
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P/S: everything you see when you look up to the sky (with your eye) is same thing you will see when you look it again in space (in space ship). No difference. The difference is that: you've never seen Earth itself from space...

Take a look at the night sky. Close to every point of light you see is how a sun looks like.

Actually their is some difference between looking up at the night sky and what we see when in space. For one the stars do not flicker as this is caused by thermal variations in the atmosphere. Also some colors may be different as they are not filtered through the dust and water vapor in our atmosphere. These particles can cause some slight distortions in color and such from the planets surface.

Originally Posted by msafwan

(the picture of sun from NASA is in "false-color". As in "not-real-color". They are using "false-color" for conducting experiment, and to see stuff that is invisible to naked eye.)

Just in case anyone is wondering, what these images show are how the Sun looks using only certain wavelengths of light, with all the other wavelengths filtered out. The images are real, but you would only see the Sun looking like that if your eyes were only capable of detecting that particular wavelength and none of the others!

Depends on how far from the sun or other stars the observer is: At the normal viewing distances for other stars ( more than a few lightyears) all stars appear as single points of light. Even when viewed through the most powerful telescopes.

Originally Posted by Jeaunse23

Depends on how far from the sun or other stars the observer is: At the normal viewing distances for other stars ( more than a few lightyears) all stars appear as single points of light. Even when viewed through the most powerful telescopes.

Surface imaging of Betelgeuse

I'm pretty sure there are some photos of exoplanets as well...

Photos of exoplanets?
No way; We can only infer their existence by either the slight dimming of the stars radiation as they pass in front or the stars slight wobble caused by the planets gravitation. Maybe the next generation of optical instruments but there is no way we can actually 'see' the planet itself.

More images of exoplanet show it orbiting its star | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Twice you beat me to the punch Strange! How am I meant to feel good about myself?

Originally Posted by Neuntoter

When observing sun from earth it looks ultra bright and does not reveal any details at least when looking it with eyes only. but about every picture of stars painted or photoshopped is a flaming red or blue lava ball. if i would enter to space and watch sun from up there, would it look as it does from surface of earth or would it be like the ones in pictures, flaming lava ball?

Of course it depends on how far away you are when looking at the star, but on the color designation chart below the sun is a G2 star which accordingly would appear as a slightly yellowish-white star at stellar distances of more than 4 light years in our neighborhood. A are pure white stars, B's tend to be the hottest and some of the most luminous stars, and M's are the coolest and reddest stars on this chart. Brightness/ Luminosity is primarily a function of temperature, mass, size, and distance.




This is the general idea of it (see sun) but maybe a little overdone in color differences, the sun being maybe a little more yellowish-white toward its interior, than the chart indicates.

http://www.synapses.co.uk/astro/hr_diag1.gif

Here accordingly is a true color picture of Capella, a brighter binary star but both very similar in color to the sun.




http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/capella-is-the-stellar-beacon-of-auriga-the-charioteer