Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Rambling: Color of the Sky at Sunset

In response to a recent comment, I thought I'd take a minute to give a brief explaination of the colors of the sky at sunset.
The sky appears orange, red, purple, and even yellow at sunset due to the scattering of the sun's rays by the atmosphere and particles within the atmosphere. When a light ray interacts with an atmospheric particle, it scatters in a manner known as Mie Scattering. This scattering is responsible for the blue color of the sky during the day.
Depending on the angle of the sun with respect to the atmosphere, though, different wavelengths are more likely to be scattered, giving off characteristic colors. The "cleaner" the air, the less scattering there is and the less interesting the sunset because only certain wavelengths are favored. However, the more dust, pollutants, and cloud particles there are in the atmopshere, the more scattering that occurs, creating a beautiful array of colors.
Even though I know that the scientific reasons behind the sunset, I never cease to be amazed at their beauty, nor to praise God for the wonderful design of the universe to allow such glorious displays! Praise God for creating such beauty!

3 comments:

B. D. Mooneyham said...

Thanks for the explanation.

B. D. Mooneyham said...

How come you never comment on your own blog?

Mr. Pi Thetahead said...

I do sometimes. I just thought that this discussion would be of interest to more people than would read the comments.