A science museum is designing a demonstration to explain why the sky appears blue during the day but takes on reddish hues during sunrise and sunset. Which explanation best accounts for these observations based on the scattering of light in the atmosphere?
Shorter wavelengths scatter more strongly, while longer atmospheric paths at sunset favour red wavelengths.
Shorter wavelengths (blue/violet) are scattered far more strongly by air molecules than longer wavelengths (red), which is why the sky looks blue during the day (Rayleigh scattering).
At sunrise and sunset, sunlight travels a much longer path through the atmosphere, so almost all the blue light is scattered away before it reaches the observer, and the remaining longer-wavelength red/orange light dominates.
Hence, this is the correct answer.correctly explains both observations.
Similar Questions
A student places an object 20 cm in front of a concave mirror with a focal length of 10 cm, using the sign convention for spherical mirrors. What is the correct value and sign for the image distance?
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The measure of an image's clarity is called _________, whereas _________ is the brightness difference between object parts.
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A 3 cm tall object is placed 9 cm in front of a concave lens with focal length 6 cm. What is the approximate height of the image formed?
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Important Questions from Optics
Who was the first one to use a glass prism to obtain the spectrum of sunlight?
Twinkling of stars is due to:
In which a convex mirror is used?
A. Rear View mirrors in vehicles
B. Glass windows
C. Makeup Mirror
D. Kaleidoscope
An object is placed 10 cm in front of a lens. The image formed is real, inverted and of same size as the object. What is the focal length and nature of the lens?
The power of a lens is -2.5 D. The type of lens and its focal length are respectively:
