When the sun rises can we say that red light reaches first   than the violet?
82863
The problem is, the air refracts the light as the sun rises. When you see the sun as it rises, it is still actually below the horizon, and it is just that the layers of air are bending the light down so you can see it. The color that gets bent (refracted) the most is the violet light, then the blue, then the green and so on. That is what is responsible for the green flash (since your eye is not as sensitive to the blue and the violet colors, it sees green first). The red actually arrives last, because of these refraction effects. \n\nThe speed of light difference between red and violet is extremely small in air, so this should not have a large influence in the timing, particularly when the atmosphere is only a few tens of miles thick at most (99% of the atmosphere is in the lowest 30 Km).\n\nAfter thinking about this a minute, I realized that you are asking because the sun looks red when it first comes up. This is NOT because the red gets here first. The blue wavelengths are scattered away from the almost white sunlight by the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, leaving the red color. As the sun rises, it goes through less air, and less blue is scattered away, and the sun becomes orange. As the sun rises even higher in the sky, less blue is removed, so the sun looks yellow.
38745
I'm pretty sure that the red light would go faster than the blue.\n\nThe speed of light is NOT constant.  It is only constant in a vacuum.  In other media, the speed is retarded.  The refractive index is a measure of the degree to which light is slowed when it enters a non-vacuum medium.  The more light is refracted, the more it is being slowed by the medium.  Since red light is refracted the least, I think that's indicative of red light being least slowed by the medium transition.
12251
The scientific answer is very long which involves dipole scattering, charged particles vector potential and much more.  There is a simple answer though.  Think of how prism works.  When a light hits the prism, what happens?  The answer is the prism breaks the white light into visible color, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet (these are the rainbow color).  Our atmosphere is filled with dust particles.  So when sun ray hits the particles in the atmosphere, it breaks the white light like the prism.  The color blue has the strongest wavelength out the rainbow colors.  Therefore, it effects more than the red and green wavelength, causing the surrounding air to appear blue.  But during the sunset, the sun light passes farther through the atmosphere causing them to deflect and decrease the blue color. So sunset appear to be red.
220002
its done by counting how long it takes for light from the planet takes reach here. usually between a period of dark and light. same as the sun
310583
It's just a light thing.  I've studied this for art more than for science...um, red light is the shortest wavelenth, so it's the first to be filtered out by distance.  If they're far enough away, only the blues and purple wavelengths make it to your eyes.
1163061
It's not.  It's the longest, but not the shortest.  The shortest is the first day of winter.  And technically, they're both the same length, about 24 hours, but first day of summer has the most daylight and first of winter has the least.  I has to do with the earth's rotation on it's axis-- on the first of summer the hemisphere in question is closest to and tilted towards the sun, maximizing daylight.  The first of winter it's still closest to, but tilted away from the sun, minimizing daylight
808179
First, ARISE. The situation may arise where we have no other choice.   Second, RISE. We will rise to the occasion.  Third, RISES. The sun rises at 6 am.  Fourth, ARISES. If the situation arises, we will deal with it. It's difficult!   Try further or farther.
575845
It is due to refraction, not diffraction.  Red is not bent the most in a prism, violet is bent the most.  \n\nWhen the sun is on the horizon, its light has to travel through many miles of atmosphere before it gets to our eye.  Since the blue end of the spectrum is bent the most through refraction, it is completely scattered away by the time the light gets to us.  Therefore, the only colors left are the red and orange.\n\nThis is the same reason the sky is blue (no it is not blue because of the reflection of the oceans!)  The blue end of the spectrum is scattered the most, thus illuminating the sky more than the other colors.  Actually, since violet is bent more than blue, the sky is actually more a violet color, but our eyes are more sensitive to blue, so we see a blue sky.
1171568
In our lifetimes it will be purely because of the filtering effects of the atmosphere and clouds. When there is dust, water, chamicals or ice in the atmosphere the colours let through will change, just like putting a coloured scarf over a lamp. \n\nWhen the sun is low in the sky the high frequencies are scattered, allowing more of the red-yellow light to reach us.\n\nAlthough the sun is predicted to change colour and grow, it will be over bilions of years.
486827
red violet c'm was that a better guess?
432633
Although they are part of the same phenomenon, heat and light are at different wavelengths; Imagine a Rainbow going from Red to Blue, the radiation wavelengths behave in a similar way, thus, the heat from the Sun is derived from the "red" end of the spectrum, the Light from the Blue end all travelling together at the same velocity.
417045
Or did you mean when light hits an object, rather than lightning?\n\nIn this case, it really depends on the composition of the object and the wavelength of the light.  Generally, some of the light is absorbed into the object in the form of energy, and some of it is reflected back.  For example, a white light shone onto a red postbox will absorb every colour within the white light except for the red wavelengths which will reflect and be seen, hence it appearing red.
48684
C- longer wavelength.  Red is the long (low fequency) end of the spectrum, and violet is at the short end (high frequency).
1023900
No. The summer solstice is the day that the sun rises farthest *north* on the horizon. The equinoxes are the days that the sun rises directly to the east.  The winter solstice is the day it rises farthest to the *south*.
953737
The answer to part one is "green", and the answer to the second part is "green".\n\nThat is why the sky actually appears blue at noon (blue light is more scattered) and red at sunset (red light is less scattered).
477940
Haven't you noticed that violet seems dim compared to blue? That's because only the blue cones are reporting it, but the green cones report a little when blue light hit them.
782431
Why SUN appears red in dawn? (and dusk)\n\nThis is the time when the sun's light travels through most atmosphere to reach us. The small particles of dust scatter some of the light and most of the light scattered is blue light. As the blue light gets scattered out of the original white light the light that reaches us has a bredominance of red light and so the sun appears red.\n\nThis also explains why the sky appears blue during the day as we see much of this scattered light coming at us from all directions. It also explains why when we see the sun through smoke it appears very red as well and why we see great sunsets after days with a great deal of haze or after some event such as a huge volcanic eruption somewhere on the earth gives us a long sequence of beautiful sunsets (and sunrises) as the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philipines did in the 1980s