Why Does The Sky Turn Colors During Sunset?

Why Does The Sky Turn Colors During Sunset?

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Story Published: Nov 6, 2002 at 7:58 AM PST

Story Updated: Mar 13, 2008 at 12:13 PM PST

By Steve Pool

SEATTLE - When the sun is low in the horizon, the sunlight has to travel through more particles in the atmosphere.

You see sunlight as white, but it's made up as a combination of the colors of the spectrum.

Those particles will tend to scatter away the blue and green light part of the sunlight's spectrum, leaving behind the more-difficult-to-scatter red and orange colors. That's because red and orange lights has a longer wavelength than the blue and greens, making it less affected by particles.

Pollution, ash or smoke can enhance the colors as there's more particles to scatter away the shorter-wavelength part of the spectrum.

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