I’ve always heard about “scattering” and that blue light is “scattered more,” but what does that really mean? Why can the sky become red/orange as well then?
In: Physics
White light from the sun is actually a mixture of colors. The color we see for things, is the color that is *reflected* by the object, and the other colors are absorbed. What we think of when we say “color” though, is actually just our brains interpretation of the light wavelength being reflected off the object into our eye. Different wavelengths correspond to different types of light, and in the visible light range which is what our eyes can detect, different wavelengths correspond to different colors.
Now, to your question…As the Earth rotates and the sun from our perspective on Earth “goes down” during sunset, the light from the sun hits the Earth’s atmosphere molecules at progressively more steep angles. This changes which light’s wavelengths we see reflected and thus that correspond to different color!
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