system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What happens to a photon when it hits the surface of the sun?

Hey askscience!

I'm a web developer and I was working on a new weather-site, when I noticed that all the sun-icons had a small highlight/shine on them. Of course, this is just modern icon-design, but it got me thinking.

So my question is this: What happens to a standard photon (let's even say it's a visual spectrum photon. Nothing high-energy or anything.) when it interacts with the surface of the(a) sun?

Follow up: Would it be possible to shine a bright enough light to get a "reflection"/shine on a sun?

Thanks in advance!
gpt
The surface of the sun is a very good black body. This means that almost all photons that arrive at the surface will be absorbed. If you shine a lot of photons this absorption would heat up the surface and cause the sun to glow brighter, but you would need an extremely bright light source to achieve this.