Why the sky is so beaut and red and orange at sunset? There is an explanation

If you've looked out the window in the evening recently, you'll have noticed one thing for sure – the colour of the sky. Reds, pinks and oranges have been striking around sunset time the past few days (and sunrise if you're mad enough to be up at that time), and it looks beauts. And it's one thing people live to go mad for – the colour of sky. We take hundreds of pictures of it, tweet about it and talk to our mates about it. But why is the sky red? Why has the UK skyline been producing the most beautiful and Instagramable night scenes?

A red sunset in Bournemouth

Why is the sunset so red?

According to The Met Office, at this time of day the Sun is much lower in the sky, which means the sunlight we are seeing has travelled through much thicker atmosphere. Blue light gets scattered more amongst the atmosphere, so it tends to go off in other directions before it reaches us. This means there is much more red and yellow light for us to see.

In more basic terms, a lot happens to the light from the Sun before it reaches our eyes. A lot of the light gets absorbed or filtered by the atmosphere before it reaches us.

A more blue, orange and yellow sunset in Aberdeen

There technically is a good sunset every single day, the light just doesn't always get seen.

When the Sun is lower in the sky, like at sunset, the path the light has to take to our eyes is longer. So the blue colours get filtered out and scattered in other directions more, leaving us with the pretty reds and oranges that have been making the striking sunsets recently.

So basically, the pretty colours are all down to the positioning of the Sun in the sky and the distance the light has to travel before it gets to us.

Here are some of the best pictures of the red sky:

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