Would a circumbinary planet have a differently colored sky depending on which star was visible?
One of the things that affects the color of the sky is the wavelengths of light that the star emits, like the image in this question. Here is the image again:
If you are standing on a circumbinary planet with an earth-like atmosphere orbiting a binary star system containing one star from the left side of that image and one star from the right side, would the sky appear different colors depending on which star was currently visible? If not, what sort of atmospheric conditions would make it possible?
For the purposes of this question, I am counting different shades of the same hue as the same color, i.e. light blue and dark blue don't count as "different colors".
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1 answer
Yes, because:
Here on Earth you see a wide range of colours in the sky depending on time of day, cloud cover, dust etc. as the atmosphere absorbs and scatters different frequencies of the generally yellow light from our Sun.
If your planet orbits a very blue star you won't expect to see the reds you get here at sunrise and sunset.
If it orbits a very red star, you will never see a blue sky as you just won't get light at those wavelengths.
So:
Assuming a similar atmosphere to our own, when your red star is in the sky you will have an overall red sky, with the blue star in the sky you will have a blue sky. With both you will have variation.
The interesting times will be at or around sunset and sunrise as the light from one appears or disappears and is attenuated through atmosphere.
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