Читать книгу The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers - Various - Страница 156

The azure tint of the cloudless sky is due to the decomposition and refraction of light, as it passes through layers of air successively increasing in density. The blue and violet, being more refrangible than other colors of the solar spectrum, are diffused through the atmosphere; and being reflected from its particles, they impart to it their own color.

The clouds, floating in the atmosphere, absorb the more refrangible rays, and reflect the less. At sunrise and sunset, when the light traverses the greatest depth of atmosphere, all the colors are absorbed except the red and the yellow; and these, being deflected from the particles of vapor, produce the brilliant coloring of sunrise and sunset.