Awe-Inspiring Visions of Sunsets and Sunrises

"[People can] experience these bumps in awe and aesthetic appraisal and beauty [when looking a a sunset or sunrise]."

"We have, as Western populations, become very disconnected from the natural world."

"When you see something vast and overwhelming or something that produces this feeling of awe, your own problems can feel diminished and so you don't worry so much about them."

Alex Smalley, doctoral candidate, University of Exeter, Britain

"Everything that you see, it's a function of many, many scattering [atmospheric filtering of light] events."

"The sunlight hits the first particle it encounters in the atmosphere, then that particle shines or reflects that incoming light onto the particle next to it."

"This is just going on a multitude number of times before that light ultimately reaches your eyes."

"They [sunsets] are very ephemeral. If you watch them, they change over the order of minutes."

Steve Coffidi, meteorologist, University of Oklahoma

 

According to research results, sunsets constitute the most beautiful fleeting weather phenomenon in a day with people finding sunrises and sunsets to represent the most beautiful, awe-inspiring of all weather conditions.This, from a study published by British researchers. According to whom people preferred sunsets and sunrises over storms, rainbows, clear blue skies or nightscapes.

 

Spending time in nature under clear blue skies has been demonstrated through research as capable of boosting mental health. In addition to which, the new research suggests, viewing a sunset or sunrise can provide an additional emotional boost. The surprising element here is that this emotional expression prevails even when viewing sunsets in paintings or screen savers the effect is similar. 

 

Sunlight takes a direct path through the atmosphere to the ground when it is paused overhead during daytime. Its position moves tangential to the ground when it rises or sets, and the pathway from sun to ground is thus lengthened, introducing various colour palettes. Sunlight strikes more molecules in the air as the pathway lengthens. Molecules like oxygen and nitrogen are thousands of times smaller than incoming visible wavelengths from the sun as it emits electromagnetic energy.

As the particles scatter, the sun's visible energy changes in direction with shorter wavelengths, like blue and purples removed from vision and longer wavelengths; orange and rad pass more freely to the ground, emitting those iconic sunset and sunrise colours. Summer is not the best time to view these phenomena with the interference of increased air pollution in the atmosphere.

 

During late fall and winter, viewing of sunrises or sunsets are optimal, when the air is cleaner, drier and less humid. Clouds can assist in sunrise enhancement by reflecting sunlight to the ground, seen with more high-altitude clouds, to capture light from the sun before it hits the atmosphere to undergo major filtering. In the presence of higher cirrus or altocumulus clouds rather than low-level clouds, brilliant reds, oranges and scarlet sunsets often occur.

People, asserts Mr. Smalley, respond to digital stimuli of nature; screen savers as example, testing people's emotions. Immersive technology can transport people's imaginations to places around the world. More positive emotions, moods and a strengthening of cognitive functions are often experienced when people physically spend time in nature, can also occur in viewing beautiful photographs of sunrises and sunsets.