Valguskiirgusel

Valguskiirgusel refers to the phenomenon of light scattering that occurs when light enters a medium and is dispersed in various directions. This effect is most commonly observed in the atmosphere, where sunlight interacts with particles such as dust, water droplets, and ice crystals. The way light scatters depends on the size of the particles and the wavelength of the light. Shorter wavelengths, like blue and violet, tend to scatter more than longer wavelengths, like red and orange. This is why the sky appears blue during the day; the blue light from the sun is scattered by molecules in the atmosphere more effectively than other colors.

When the sun is low on the horizon, such as during sunrise or sunset, light has to travel through a greater thickness of the atmosphere. This increased path length means that more of the shorter blue and violet wavelengths are scattered away, leaving the longer red, orange, and yellow wavelengths to reach our eyes. This results in the vibrant colors often seen at these times. Valguskiirgusel also plays a role in other optical phenomena, such as the formation of rainbows, where sunlight is refracted and reflected by raindrops, and the appearance of halos around the sun or moon, caused by the refraction and reflection of light by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The study of light scattering is important in fields like meteorology, atmospheric physics, and optics.