Orange Sunset, Emerald Isle

This photograph of a rust-colored sunset was taken from Emerald Isle, part of the famous "Outer Banks" of North Carolina. Emerald Isle's island geography is at least partly responsible for the sunset's brilliant orange hue.

The sun emits "white" light. White light is actually a combination of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Scientists and artists often use the acronym Roy G. Biv to remember these colors of the visible light spectrum. All colors have different wavelengths, from the very long (Roy) to the very short (Biv).

The sun's white light is scattered by billions of tiny molecules as it filters through Earth's atmosphere. Light with short wavelengths (Biv) scatters much more easily than light with long wavelengths. Because of this, the sky usually appears blue as the sun shines down through the atmosphere during the day.

As the sun rises and sets, however, its light passes through much more of Earth's atmosphere before reaching our eyes. Blue and violet light are scattered away. Only the long, reddish wavelengths can go the distance.

What does all of this scattering have to do with brightly colored island sunsets? It comes down to what does the scattering.

Earth's atmosphere—air—is mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Those molecules are pretty evenly spread out and do most of the sunlight-scattering around the world. Islands, however, are very close to the ocean. The air above them is filled with many more water and salt molecules than air further inland. All these "extra" molecules scatter even more blue light, leaving even more red light to reach our eyes.