Why does the sky turn pink?

People drive hundreds and thousands of miles just to witness beautiful skies, sunrises, and sunsets. There is a different level of amazement when the sky is pinkish or what I would like to call the Cotton Candy sky! Although we’re amazed by it, we don’t think much about the science behind it! In this blog, we’re gonna tell you the scientific secret behind those pink skies.

The sky can turn pink for a variety of reasons. One common cause is the presence of dust or other particles in the air. When the sun is low on the horizon, its light has to pass through a greater thickness of the Earth's atmosphere to reach the observer. This causes the shorter, red wavelengths of light to scatter more and be more visible, while the longer, blue wavelengths are scattered less and are less visible. This can give the sky a pink or reddish colour.

Another cause of pink skies is the presence of pollutants in the air. Pollutants such as smoke and haze can also scatter the shorter, red wavelengths of light, giving the sky a pink or reddish color.

Finally, certain types of clouds can also cause the sky to turn pink. For example, clouds that are made up of ice crystals, such as cirrus clouds, can scatter the shorter, red wavelengths of light and give the sky a pink or reddish hue.

Pink sunsets all depend on strange tricks that colors can do and the distance the sunlight has to travel and the atmospheric particles it has to go through before it reaches the human’s eyes! The more color of the red spectrum you see, the more polluted your air is!

So the next time you see pink skies, you know the reason behind it!