Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Rayleigh scattering causes the blue color of the daytime sky and the reddening of the Sun at sunset. Rayleigh scattering (/ ˈ r eɪ l i / RAY-lee) is the scattering or deflection of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles with a size much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.
The Rayleigh sky model describes the observed polarization pattern of the daytime sky. Within the atmosphere, Rayleigh scattering of light by air molecules, water, dust, and aerosols causes the sky's light to have a defined polarization pattern. The same elastic scattering processes cause the sky to be blue.
But the science behind a blue sky isn't that easy. For starters, it involves something called the Rayleigh effect, or Rayleigh scattering. But that same phenomenon can also sometimes make skies ...
A glory is an optical phenomenon, appearing much like an iconic Saint's halo about the head of the observer, produced by light backscattered (a combination of diffraction, reflection and refraction) towards its source by a cloud of uniformly sized water droplets. A glory has multiple colored rings, with red colors on the outermost ring and blue ...
Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter. All optical phenomena coincide with quantum phenomena. [ 1 ] Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the Sun or Moon with the atmosphere, clouds, water, dust, and other particulates.
The blue sky spectrum contains light at all visible wavelengths with a broad maximum around 450–485 nm, the wavelengths of the color blue. Diffuse sky radiation is solar radiation reaching the Earth 's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or particulates in the atmosphere .
Particles in the air scatter short-wavelength light (blue and green) through Rayleigh scattering much more strongly than longer-wavelength yellow and red light. Loosely, the term crepuscular rays is sometimes extended to the general phenomenon of rays of sunlight that appear to converge at a point in the sky, irrespective of time of day. [3] [4]
When the day's sky is overcast, sunlight passes through the turbidity layer of the clouds, resulting in scattered, diffuse light on the ground . This exhibits Mie scattering instead of Tyndall scattering because the cloud droplets are larger than the wavelength of the light and scatters all colors approximately equally.