For the common person, perception is just something that comes natural. They never question what it is or how it works. But honestly, why should they? However, once you acquire the knowledge it’s hard to not see how it all works in day to day activities. For example, I went down to Georgia for spring break this year. We spent some time in Atlanta and then a few days on the beach in Savannah. We spent almost every night out on the beach and so we were able to watch the moon rise every night. But how can we see the moon? It doesn’t emit any light on its own so it must be coming from somewhere. That’s where light reflection comes in. The moon is covered with a very reflective kind of dirt. This means that any light that hits it won’t be absorbed into the dirt itself but reflected into the vastness of space. (Universe Today) Some of it however is reflected straight at the earth. The rest is just scattered in deep space. Our eyes can pick up on what little light makes it to our planet and this is how we can see the moon.
Sometimes the moon rises at the same time that the sun is setting. This actually makes for a very beautiful sight. Along with the direct light from the sun lighting up the foreground, we can also see the light that is reflected straight off the moon. This is fine when both the sun and moon are visible and can shine light straight at you. But why is the night still bright for about half an hour after the sun has disappeared over the horizon? This is due to the earth’s atmosphere. (Earthsky) It can “trap” the light and keep it from bouncing off the face of the planet and into space. The particles and atoms in the air will actually bounce light back and forth between them until the light energy is dissipated or absorbed by something else. This is referred to as scattered light. It makes for very beautiful sights. (see attached picture) Even though the sun is behind me in the photo, it still looks as if it were setting in front of me. The reason that the sky isn’t just blue all the way down to the sea is because all of the blue light (which has a different wave length than other colors) is absorbed by those random particles in the air. The red and orange energies are still left bouncing around several miles away from where we were standing.
Works Cited
“Enjoying EarthSky? Subscribe.” EarthSky. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
“Why Does the Moon Shine?” Universe Today RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
I found your journal entry very interesting especially because I talked about what happens to our eyes after a sunset! I think it should also be mentioned in your response that the reason we can see the moon on the beach, assuming that there is no interference with street lamps, is because the moon becomes our only light source. Also I wonder why sunsets change colors horizontally and not by splotches of different particles that are absorbing different wavelengths of light. Also is the reason that the sky isn’t just blue all the way down to the sea because the blue light is absorbed or because the sun is leaving and the different amount of illumination is a factor into the different colors we see? I find this topic of understanding a sunset really fascinating and I hope we can further discuss this in class one day!