The sky turns pink at sunset because the sunlight has to travel through more of the Earth's atmosphere. When the sun is low in the sky, its light travels a longer path through the air, and blue light gets scattered away, leaving behind reds and pinks. It’s like when you shine a flashlight through a cup of water, the colors change depending on how far the light goes.
Examples
- When you shine a flashlight through a glass of water, it looks redder when the light has to travel farther through the water.
- On a clear day, the sky is blue because the blue light scatters more than other colors, but at sunset, that blue light gets scattered out of the way.
- Imagine a painter using only red and orange paint, that's what the sun looks like as it sets.
See also
- What Causes the Tides Exactly?
- Why Do We Have Different Seasons?
- What Causes a Volcano to Erupt?
- How Does a Battery Work?
- Why Do We Yawn When We're Tired?
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Categories: Science · optics· light· atmosphere · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.