Longer Distance to Travelĭuring sunsets and sunrises, when the Sun is closer to the horizon, sunlight has to travel through a longer distance and more of the dense environment to reach an observer’s eye.ĭue to Rayleigh scattering, most of the light of shorter wavelengths – the blue, violet, and green – are scattered away multiple times, leaving only lights of longer wavelength – the red, orange, and yellow – to pass straight through to the observer. The Sun, therefore, looks yellow for us here on Earth. This means most of the yellow, orange, and red light passes through while a small amount of blue and purple light is scattered and removed from the mix. When the Sun is high in the sky, the light has to travel a shorter distance through the atmosphere. Besides making the sky look blue, it is also the reason why the Sun looks yellow during the day even though sunlight is white. It is named after British physicist John William Strutt, also known as Lord Rayleigh. This phenomenon is known as Rayleigh scattering.

When you look up at the sky during the day, this scattered blue and violet light reaches your eyes, however, the human eye is more receptive to blue frequencies than violet frequencies, so the sky looks blue.

When sunlight strikes gas molecules, such as nitrogen and oxygen, light of longer wavelengths, like red, yellow, and orange, easily passes through, while light of shorter wavelengths, such as blue and violet, is absorbed and then scattered in all directions by the gas molecules. This is why the sky looks blue during the day. The Sun's rays have to travel a shorter path through Earth's atmosphere in the day. Business Date to Date (exclude holidays).

Rise of the reds 1.04