Sunrises and Sunsets

This particular amazing shot of a sunrise over Fantasy Canyon in Utah typifies the beauty of nature.  Just what is a sunset and sunrise and what makes them such a phenomenon that we photograph and discuss endlessly.

You may wonder what causes those wonderful colors we see in the morning and evening with sunsets and sunrises welcomes us to their display of wonderment.  There is a science to everything that happen around us and while our eyes process the phenomenon that unfolds in the sky and the brain interprets what we are seeing, putting it into some context that we find to be artistic and beautiful, there is an explanation for how it all comes to be.  The sunset will display a range of colors and this is referred to as scattering.  This is when molecules an the interaction of small particles in the sky or more precisely within the atmosphere cause the light rays to bend and change direction.  This is the scattering effect.  The actual colors we see originate from the wavelength of the light and whether the particles are large, small, or medium in size.  Violet and blue…one of the most lovely colors we see at in the sky, comes from a short wavelength and the scattering effect is much more pronounced and frequent.  As a result, these blue and violet hues of the sky find their way to the human eye.

When the sun is low in the sky, the sun rays pass through the air and more molecules are affected causing violet and blue hues to be chased away from our eyes.  It just a longer path for the light to travel and as the blue and violet colors are scattered, we are left  the lovely oranges, reds, and yellows.  Since red has the longest wavelength of the visible light spectrum and the path of the sun’s rays to our eyes is longest at the horizon, these reddish hues dominate our visual field.

This same technique the wavelength of light, is employed in detecting whether planets and other celestial bodies are moving away from us or to us.  You may have heard of the term red-shift. So whether we are looking at things from a celestial perspective or through the lens of our everyday existence,  the light spectrum influences how we see everything around us every moment of our lives and sunsets and sunrises are just memorable examples.