What Causes the Color of a Sunrise or Sunset?

Sunrises and sunsets are like a paint party in the sky. When the Sun is low on the horizon, its light has to travel through more of Earth’s atmosphere. This makes the blue light scatter away, leaving behind warm colors like red and orange, just like when you look at a glass of water with food coloring, the deeper it goes, the more color you see.

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Examples

  1. A red sunset looks like the sky is on fire.
  2. The orange sun at sunrise feels like you're watching a big, warm ball rise from the ground.
  3. On a clear day, the sky turns blue because all the colors have mixed together.

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Categories: Science · optics· light· atmosphere · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.