I googled it and it came back that it is because the sunlight travels through dense atmosphere, please can someone explain what that is?
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The atmosphere is all the gas surrounding the earth, including the air you breath. You’ve probably heard of greenhouse gasses. Those are in the atmosphere!
The distance through the atmosphere the light must travel to you while the sun is directly overhead (essentially the thickness of the atmosphere) is much shorter than the distance when the sun is at the horizon. The atmosphere absorbs some of the energy as the light travels through it. Longer distance, less energy reaching you.
the sun appears dimmer when it is setting because the sunlight has to travel through more of the atmosphere to reach our eyes. The atmosphere scatters some of the sunlight, making it less intense. This is why it is possible to look directly at the sun for a few seconds without causing any damage.
The atmosphere is made up of tiny molecules of gas and dust. These molecules scatter sunlight in all directions. The amount of scattering depends on the wavelength of the light. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, which is why the sky appears blue. Red light is scattered less, which is why the sun appears red at sunset.
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It’s sort of like the thickness of a sheet of paper vs. the width of a sheet of paper. Now which orientation has more paper between two points?
That’s roughly an analogy for how much atmosphere the noon-day sun passes through vs. sunrise or sunset.
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