Answer:

Explanation:

On a recent autumn night here in Washington, D.C., the sun seemed to personify a Dylan Thomas poem: Do not go gentle into that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The scarlet skies inspired many viewers to grab their cameras, and prompted a question: Why are some sunsets so spectacular, and others a mere muddle?

We asked Stephen Corfidi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist who's written about the science of colorful sunsets, to help us see the light.

In simple terms, what makes a good sunset happen?

I guess it depends on how you define "good," but I'm going to assume you mean a strikingly colorful one, where the colors are spectrally pure—say, vivid orange or red—as opposed to a more muted palette.

Keep in mind that what we see with our human eyes is just a tiny part of the electromagnetic radiation that's given off by the sun. That radiation contains a wide spectrum of wavelengths, but your eyes are only sensitive to certain parts of it: the so-called visible wavelengths. Different colors are associated with different wavelengths.

And depending on what happened to the light before it got to you, some of those visible wavelengths don't even reach your eye. Portions of it are absorbed and filtered out in the atmosphere.