And seeing a sunset and waking up in the morning to catch a sunrise, I noticed how different they look, but a sunrise is just a reverse sunset so shouldn’t it be the same?
In: Planetary Science
For starters, your east and west might be quite different from each other. My sunrise is over land and my sunset is over de ocean. Temperatures are generally not symmetrical for sunset/sunrise, therefore atmospheric conditions will also not be symmetrical. That would be the main factor in how you perceive the sun close to the horizon.
Sunset is at end of day, when sun has caused evaporation of water, smog and other pollutants are airborne from the day’s transportation and industrial output. All those vapors and particles in the air refract the sunlight to make the colors of the sunset. At sunrise, it’s cooler and the moisture has settled out of sky, there are fewer pollutants and such created overnight, so fewer particles in sky for sun to refract off of.
>The main reason they appear different is because of the amount of moisture and particulate in the air after a long exposure to sun vs. a long period without the heat of the sun. This is related to the [Mie Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mie_scattering).
[https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lger4/why_do_sunrises_and_sunsets_look_significantly/](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lger4/why_do_sunrises_and_sunsets_look_significantly/)
r/Askscience actually covered this pretty well 13 years ago if you want more detail on it. But in general, the light progresses differently through the atmosphere at sunrise vs sunset, which causes the differences in appearances. Sunset light travels longer/farther because of rotation and the difference in atmosphere impacts the light differently.
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