Electromagnetic
Waves
To understand how light travels from the
sun to the Earth, you have to understand what light is. Light is an
electromagnetic wave--a wave of electric and magnetic energy oscillating very
quickly. There are many different electromagnetic waves, and the type is
determined by the speed of oscillation. For example, radio waves oscillate more
slowly than light, while X-rays oscillate much more quickly. These
electromagnetic waves travel in small packets called photons. Because light
travels in both waves and photon packets, it behaves both like a wave and a particle.
Traveling
Through Space
Most waves require a medium to travel in.
For example, if you drop a rock in a pond, it makes waves in the water. No
water, no waves. Because light consists of photons, however, it can travel
through space like a stream of tiny particles. The photons actually travel more
quickly through space and lose less energy on the way, because there are no
molecules in the way to slow them down.
The
Atmosphere
When light travels through space from the
sun, all of the frequencies of light travel in a straight line. When light hits
the atmosphere, however, the photons begin to collide with gas molecules. Red,
orange and yellow photons have long wavelengths and can travel right through
the gas molecules. Green, blue and purple photons, however, have shorter
wavelengths, which allows molecules to easily absorb them. The molecules hold
onto the photon for only an instant, then shoot them out again in a random
direction. This is why the sky looks blue. Many of these scattered photons fly toward
the Earth, making the sky appear to glow. This is also why sunsets look red. At
sunset, the photons have to travel through a larger layer of atmosphere before
they reach your eyes. More of the higher frequency photons are absorbed,
leaving layers of red, orange and yellow
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