Question

If the surface temperature of a star is 6000k, in which colour would it appear in a colour photograph?

Answer 1

White-yellow

Answer 2

A star with a surface temperature of 6000K would appear white-yellow in a color photograph. This can be explained through Wien's displacement law, which relates the peak wavelength of emitted radiation to the temperature of a black body. While the peak wavelength for a 6000K star falls in the blue-green region, the star emits radiation across the entire visible spectrum. The combination of all these wavelengths, along with our eye's sensitivity to different wavelengths, results in the star appearing white with a slight yellow tinge in photographs. This temperature is very close to our Sun's surface temperature (5778K), which is why the color appearance is similar to what we observe with our own star.