why the sky becomes red mostly at dawn and dusk?

Answer 1

Because of the scattering of light in the Earths atmosphere.

The sun gives out white light. White light is made up of the colours of the spectrum; red orange yellow green blue indigo and violet (red light has the longest wavelength, and it gets shorter as you go along). As the white light enters the earths atmosphere it gets scattered (it bumps into particles in the air and reacts with them) giving out their seperate colours. Blue light gets scattered the most in the air because it has a short wavelength and so it hits more particles than the red/orange/yellow hence the sky is blue. As the sun sets/rises it gets further away from you and so the light has to travel further through the atmosphere to get to you. Because it has further to go, the blue light gets scattered a lot more until it eventually gets scattered away completely and so we see the other colours that have not been scattered so much - red/orange.

It is NOT a reflection of light on the clouds or from the moon or from pollution (though pollution can create more particles in the air which help to scatter the light more). The sky is not blue because it reflects off the sea either!

Answer 2

Every day at dawn and dusk, sunlight must travel through additional hundreds of miles of atmosphere; atmospheric gases, water vapor and dust absorb some of that light, mostly of the shorter wavelengths (e.g., blue, violet, ultraviolet, etc.). What remains is the yellows, oranges, and reds, which accounts for the brilliant colors seen at crepuscular times (great word, meaning dusk). We owe the flaming colors of sunset to the fact that longer wavelengths have the property of penetrating dust or water vapor better than short ones. Red lights can be seen from much farther than blue ones (hence, the adoption of red lights for emergency vehicles), and white light, which contains all colors, appears reddened when seen from long distances. Again, this is because much of the blue and violet didn't make it through the atmosphere

its only illustrative & not exaustive

Answer 3

it is due to RAYLEIGH SCATTERING LAW proposed by Lord Rayleigh.At dawn & dusk the rays from the sun have to travel a larger part of the atmosphere than at noon.so most of the blue light is scettered away and only the red light which is least scattered reaches the observer.hence sky appears reddish at dawn & dusk

Answer 4

The Sun is a burning ball of gas
and have not solid surface.
but there is a limit then gas becomes visible
which is called photosphere .
and temperature of that line gives it colour.
normally, temp. is 5800 kelvin and that gives yellow colour to the Sun,
and temp. b/w 3500 k -5000 k gives light orange colour and temp. b/w 2000 k- 3500 k gives dark orange colour (just like spectrum) it's really surprising that as heat increases it gives blue colour so red is the coolest colour and blue is hottest.
so don't know ,
why only at dawn & dusk exactly,
may be distance play a role and so it becomes cool and we can see red colour .
It's also said after centuries, yellow sun becomes red and then white (evolution)

Answer 5

Reflections of the sun bounce off the clouds. As the sun sets behind mountains it hits the sky at a different angle.

Answer 6

It is not a reflection but a REFRACTION. The sun rays consist of different wavelengths. The earth's atmosphere has different densities. At noon, sun rays penetrate the atmosphere perpendicularly. In the morning and evening, however, they penetrate at different angles, so they are refracted. Rainbow is created the same way.

For further information, please read:

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/refracti

Regards,
Haliman

Answer 7

red sky at night, sailors delight
red sky at dawn, sailor be warned

Answer 8

Red is the symbol for love. So God in heaven with love opens the curtain saying "Good Morning Every Body!!!" and closes it saying" Good night every body!!!"

Answer 9

the sun reflecting through higher pollution in the air.

Answer 10

it is the reflection of the sun, moon and the earth all coming together around the side time.