The Kingdom on Monday witnessed an unusual sunset when red and orange hues cascaded over buildings, captivating eyewitnesses and making them wonder about the phenomenon.
“There are various theories about what happened, but generally speaking, redness is natural during sunset because of what is scientifically known as ‘scattering in the atmosphere’, which causes the blue hues to disappear and the red and orange ones to be more focused,” Hanna Sabat, an astronomer at the Jordanian Astronomical Society, told The Jordan Times on Tuesday.
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Dust and other particles stuck in the atmosphere cause scattering, and the more particles there are, the more scattering there is. But the cause of this increase of particles and dust has not been determined yet, Sabat said.
“When these particles reach the stratosphere, it is possible for the sun rays to scatter and increase the red hue, making the sunset look the way it did last evening,” she added.
Pollution, forest fires or volcanoes are among the natural causes of increased dust in the atmosphere and, of course, man-made causes are possible as well, Sabat said.
One hypothesis is that the fires that happened in Siberia caused these particles to rise to great heights, reaching the stratosphere and then reaching the Levant, Sabat noted.
“This is only one hypothesis, but the matter needs deeper research to uncover the actual cause of the scattering.”
This article has been adapted from its original source.
