Sunset afterglow over the sea looking out North-West from the Cut Bridge, Sandys Parish, Bermuda


Sunset over the sea looking out North-West from the Cut Bridge, Sandys Parish, Bermuda. Sunset, also called sundown in some American English dialects, is the instant when the trailing edge of the sun's disk disappears below the horizon in the west. It should not be confused with dusk, which is the point at which darkness falls, some time after the beginning of twilight when the sun itself sets. The sunset is often more brightly colored than the sunrise, with the shades of red and orange being more vibrant. The atmosphere responds in a number of ways to exposure to the sun. In particular, there tends to be more dust in the lower atmosphere at the end of the day than at the beginning. During the day, the sun heats the surface of the Earth, lowering the relative humidity and increasing wind speed and turbulence, which serves to lift dust into the air. However, differences between sunrise and sunset may in some cases depend more on the particular geographical features of the location from which they are viewed. For example, on a west-facing coastline, sunset occurs over water while sunrise occurs over land. The intense red and orange hues of the sky at sunset and sunrise are mainly caused by scattering of sunlight by dust particles, soot particles, other solid aerosols, and liquid aerosols floating in the earth's atmosphere. These enhanced red and orange colors at sunset and sunrise are mathematically explained by Mie theory or the discrete dipole approximation. When there are no particulates or aerosols in the troposphere, such as after a big rain storm, then the remaining less intense reds are explained by Rayleigh Scattering of sunlight by air molecules.


Size: 5050px × 3360px
Location: The Cut Bridge, near Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
Photo credit: © John Gaffen 2 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

Keywords: afterglow, bermuda, clouds, dusk, gold, golden, meteorology, orange, parish, red, sandys, sea, sunset, water