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Why the Sky Is Blue: Rayleigh Scattering and Why Sunsets Are Red
@garagelab
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2026-05-16 04:00:32
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Sunlight contains all wavelengths of visible light. When it enters Earth's atmosphere, it collides with nitrogen and oxygen molecules. These molecules are much smaller than the wavelengths of visible light, and they scatter light according to Rayleigh scattering — a process where scattering intensity is inversely proportional to the fourth power of wavelength. Blue light, with a shorter wavelength of around 450 nanometers, is scattered roughly ten times more than red light at 700 nanometers. In every direction you look across the sky, you're seeing blue light that has been scattered toward your eyes from the entire dome of atmosphere above. At sunset, light travels through a much thicker atmospheric path at low angles, and almost all the blue has been scattered away before it reaches you — leaving only red and orange.
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