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Morning Mug: Just A Beautiful Sunset

Photo by George Burshteyn
Photo by George Burshteyn

And if any of you out there are interested in why the sky turns these beautiful shades while the sun rises and sets (which, as you know, it doesn’t really do), read on:

At sunrise or sunset, sunlight takes a much longer path through the atmosphere than during the middle part of the day. Because this lengthened path results in an increased amount of violet and blue light being scattered out of the beam by the nearly infinite number of scattering “events” that occur along the way (a process collectively known as 

multiple scattering

), the light that reaches an observer early or late in the day is noticeably reddened. Thus, it could be said that sunsets are red because the daytime sky is blue.

Photo by George Burshteyn

Morning Mug is our daily showcase of photographs from our readers. If you have a photograph that you’d like to see featured, send it to photos@sheepsheadbites.com.