Roses Are Red Sunsets Are Too Why Does This Happen When The Sun Sets Before You? By: Victoria D. Table of Contents

Introduction Vocabulary Science Diagrams Graph Related Links

Sunsets are known for their beauty and their magnificent shows of reds, oranges, and pinks. When you look at a sunset you look at the sun and the sky and don’t stop to think of why the sky actually turns all these colors. The reason for red sunsets has to do with the scattering of light throughout the atmosphere and the vibration of those waves and atoms through an open space. Different colors of the sky due to the sun are all an effect of the position of the sun and how much atmosphere the light has to go through. At sunset the light has to travel a farther distance therefore blues are lessened and red colors are seen more. The reason for sunsets is all in the eye of the onlooker. Table of Contents

Spectrum- The spread of colors seen when the light is passed through a prism or diffraction grating More Vocab. White Light- Light, such as sunlight, that is a combination of all the colors. Under white light, white objects appear white and colored objects appear in their individual colors Additive Primary Colors- Red, blue and green light. Added together these colors produce white light Complementary Colors- Two colors of light beams that when added together appear white Line Spectrum- Pattern of distinct lines of color, corresponding to particular wavelengths

Pigment- A material that selectively absorbs colored light Table of Contents Scatter- To absorb sound or light and reemit it in all directions Subtractive Primary Colors- The colors of magenta, yellow and cyan. These are the three colors most useful in color mixing by subtraction This picture shows how when all the colors are combined, white light is created

The reason for the color of anything in our atmosphere has to do with light color pigments passing through a given amount of space or a certain atmosphere. Different colors of light have different wavelengths. We already know that the sky is blue. The colors blue, indigo and violet have short wavelengths so therefore they have a high frequency. The colors red yellow and orange have long wavelengths therefore they have a low frequency.This means that when the blue light molecules move around their vibrations are greater than that of red light molecules. Keep this in mind as we continue to the next slide. More Science

As you can see in the diagram below, the Earth revolves around the sun in a 24 hour period, creating day and night, and dawn and sunset. This is why, as you can see below, different countries on Earth have different time zones. This means while in one country it could be day, the other country across the globe could be night. This being said, when it is sunset the sun is at a farther distance away from the Earth. Remember how I told you the color of anything In our atmosphere has to do with the light going through a certain amount of space? Well when the sun sets the light molecules have to go through a longer and thicker atmosphere. Since blue colors have a higher frequency, when the distance between the sun and Earth is farther away, the vibrations from the molecules are so fast that they go crazy and fly all over the place. The red, orange and yellow colors however have a lower frequency, so they take the place of the crazy blue molecules so therefore the sky appears in those three colors. Table of Contents

Here the sun is at its normal position where the sky seems to appear blue.The light only has to travel through a small distance. Here is the sun positioned during a sunset. Do you see how the light has to travel through a farther distance? Here you see at different positions of the sun how the light has to travel through different and longer atmospheres. It all has to do with the position of the sun. Table of Contents

Hyper Physics Wikipedia Physlink This website helped with the science behind why the distance of the sun has to do with the red color of the sky and the science behind it This website helped explained Rayleigh Scattering and how it effects the light molecules and the science behind it This website helped me with the conceptual part of why Sunsets are red. Table of Contents Mrs. Pecks Physic Page