What causes the sunset to have that reddish glow?

Question

I was under the impression, the beautiful sight was caused somehow by air pollution, true?

Answer 1

When the sun is low on the horizon, the light waves you see go through more of the earth's atmosphere than when it's high in the sky. This means that more of the longer wave-lengths of light are visible, and red is the longest wavelength of light that we humans see well. Shorter wavelengths are often dispersed for the same reason, so the red wavelengths don't have as much "competition." Pollution can make this effect more pronounced (there were some spectacular sunsets after Mount St. Helens erupted, for example), but the sunset will generally be redder even without pollution because of the light which is able to reach your eyes.

Answer 2

False. Dust and pollutants do NOT cause the beautiful colors of a sunset, but they might soften it.

Remember, Sunlight isn't purely white - it's composed of millions of different colors from red and blue to purple and red. The sun journeys on a long path during mid-day (think of its relative position) and more of its blue, grey and purplish coloured light falls out of the beam along the way...causing a BLUE sky! By the time it reaches a sunrise or sunset position, most of the light left is of a redder value, causing the glorious watercolor before you. Enjoy!

Answer 3

that takes place while the moon processes the Earth's shadow (this takes place in basic terms at an entire moon). If it gets close sufficient that's going to enter the outer fringes of the shadow. image voltaic refracted by employing Earth's environment produces a reddish mild because of the fact the blue end of the spectrum is filtered out and that reddish mild bounces off the moon and lower back to us.

Answer 4

Pollution in the Air

Answer 5

because the earth is curved the sunrays at sunset must travel through many miles of air to get to your eyes. As they enter the earths atmosphere the smaller sized wave langths of light are relected or refracted before they get to you. At the same time the larger wave langths are not as much affected by all the air. ( they are still somewhat affected because as you can tell the sun is not as bright)

Answer 6

it's because the sun's rays are diffused more by the particles in the atmosphere. the city where i live has serious air pollution--the sunset is lovely everyday.

Answer 7

during sunset the light from the sun gets refracted by the atmosphere. since red or crimson red has the highest wavelength it is the main colour which gets refracted. due to this it appears red in colour.

Answer 8

the blue wavelengths in the white light coming from the sun are dispersed by dist and water in the air, so only the red and orange wavelengths reach your eyes.