Sun’s True Color: White in Space, Yellow on Earth

From space the Sun appears white; on Earth its color shifts toward yellow because the atmosphere scatters shorter blue wavelengths (Rayleigh scattering), while the sky looks blue from the same process. The label “yellow dwarf” is a convention, not a literal color; at noon the Sun is nearly white, and at sunrise/sunset the light reddens as it traverses more atmosphere. Space- and Moon-based observations consistently show a white Sun.