• Question: why does the sky sometimes go red?

    Asked by abbley to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      The sky is normally blue because the sky scatters blue light more than any other colour.

      At sunset, the light from the sun has to travel a lot further through the atmosphere because it’s at an angle (more than twice as much). So the blue light gets scattered before it gets to us, leaving the other end of the spectrum which is red.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      When the sun is setting, it has to travel through a lot of the atmosphere, so it is also reflecting off more particles of dust and pollution in the air. When volcanoes erupt, they throw lots of ash and dust into the sky, so you get some amazing sunsets!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      The sky is usually blue because the blue light from the Sun gets scattered the most. This means the Sun itself looks a bit redder – not noticeably during the day, but at sunrise and sunset the light has to travel through a lot more of the atmosphere (because the Sun is near the horizon), so sometimes it gets noticeably red and also turns the clouds in it’s direction into a beautiful pinky red colour. Spectacular! 🙂

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      A red sky means that you can’t see the blue light. That will happen when the blue light from the sun has been scattered away which usually means that the sun is low down. So you get red skies just after sunrise or before sunset.

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