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What conditions cause the sky to change colors?
Question Date: 2006-01-09
Answer 1:

As you may know, the sky is blue because the atmosphere scatters light on the blue side (smaller wavelength) of the visible spectrum better than light on the red (large wavelength) end. When the Sun and Moon are near the horizon they look orange color because of the greater atmospheric thickness. As you know, clouds and other particles in the sky (dust, smoke, etc.) can also make nice sunsets due to increased scattering of blue light.



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