Exam 20: Light, Color and Atmospheric Optics

If people see a rainbow in the morning, they are facing west toward the rain shower, and it is likely that the clouds and showers will move away from them.

Volcanic eruptions rich in ____________________ can produce red sunsets.

A reflection of sunlight off ice crystals is called a____.

How does the human eye perceive light? What would happen if humans only had rod-type receptors?

Sundogs are caused by ____________________ of sunlight through ice crystals.

Fata Morgana are most commonly seen ____.

A star much hotter than our Sun radiates more energy at shorter wavelengths and thus appears redder.

The phenomenon that can sometimes be seen near the upper rim of a setting or rising Sun is called ____.

The sky is blue because air molecules selectively ____ blue light.

Without the atmosphere, there would be no refraction or scattering, and the Sun would rise later and set earlier than it now does.

Which events are caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals?

Haze can scatter light from the rising or setting Sun in a way that produces bright light beams, called anticrepuscular rays, radiating across the sky.

Another term for reflected light is diffuse light.

The blue color of distant mountains is due primarily to ____.

This forms when sunlight that falls on nearly spherical dewdrops is focused and reflected back toward the Sun along nearly the same path it took originally.

If people possessed rod-type receptors only, then only ____________________ vision would be possible.

____________________ is the name given to the time after sunset (and immediately before sunrise)when the sky remains illuminated.

Explain why the sky is blue during the day and black at night.

Red sunsets, blue moons, and milky-white skies are mainly the result of ____.

If Earth did not have an atmosphere, the sky would appear ____ during the day.