Sun or Saturn

Provided by: Jonny Ueland
Summary Author and Editor: Jim Foster, Jonny Ueland

The photo above of a scarlet sunset shows what might be a view of Saturn from one of its moons. It was taken from southwestern Norway on November 17, 2007. Sundown comes early in Norway in mid autumn, and on this day, a layer of low clouds was positioned just right to make the Sun look, well, out of this world. The reddened colors aren't from any exotic gases but rather result when the pathlength of sunlight is increased at day's end -- the shorter wavelength blues and greens are more readily extinguished.