Why is the sunset coloured red?

Imagine you are sitting on a lonesome beach with your girlfriend and you are starring at a wonderful red sunset. But how does the sunset work? Why is it red-coloured although the normal light is white or yellow?

To touch the earth the sunlight has to pass several strata. The last strata is our atmosphere, filled with gases like oxygen, nitrogen and CO2 and many others in less concentrates. Each of these gases has got its own molecules that are flying to the atmosphere. When the light of the sun passes our atmosphere this light is scattered different directions at the molecules of the gases. White colour consists of many different colours (spectral colours) with different wavelength. From the short-waved blue light to the long-waved red light.

Because of the long wavelength of the blue light it is scattered more often than the red light. This is the cause of the blue colour of the sky. So blue is the "backlight" of the sky. Only the sun is coloured yellow, because it is light with a shorter wave-length.

In the evening the sun stand in a shorter angle to the earth. So the light has to go a long way through the atmosphere and the probability is much bigger that the light is scattered. So the long wavelength light like blue is scattered more and in the end there is only the red (short length light) left. This effect is effort by particles of dirt in the air. So if you have got a dirty sky the sunset will be more beautiful.

By the way, do you know how to build your own sunset?

For this experiment you need a strong pocket lamp, tequila and a glass with a thin and planar ground. Now you fill some of the tequila in the glass. Darken the room and put the lamp under the ground. Now fill some water (only some drops) in that glass (the tequila gets milky). During filling water in the glass look at the wall and you see a point turning from orange into a dark red. Now you have your own sunset!

Why do pengiuns not get cold feet standing on the ice the whole day?

Cold feed would be very unpleasant for the penguin. But he has got a method to avoid them. As every mammal he has got a bloodstream. Warm, oxygenated blood fleets in the extremity of the penguin like the feet. But now their is the special trick of the penguin. The warm blood circuits round the cold,from feet coming blood. So the sorts of blood get an equal temperature.So the penguin doesn't recognizes that he has got cold feet. And there is another trick the penguin uses to survive on the cold ice. He can control the Volume of the blood fleeting to his feet. If it is cold he minimizes stream of blood fleeting to his feet. So they are less supplied with blood and his blood cannot get cold and so he can use it to warm his body which is, because of his vital parts, much more important. After a period of cold the penguin he maximizes the bloodstream to his feet again. The penguin of course doesn't know about this trick, because it is controlled in his subconsciousness.
So the penguin sometimes gets cold feet but he doesn't know it.

Why do bananas get brown faster coming out of the fridge?

All bananas get brown by getting older, it is effect of aging. But why?

As every plant and creature a banana has got cells and membranes. With aging this membranes are getting porous. So there can get substances oft the cell, like in our case substances of the Phenolamin-group. These substances meet the enzym Polyphenoloxidase, which oxidases the phenolamines. The product of this reaction is a brown stuff with an analog structure like the substance colouring the human skin in a brown way.
But now back to our main question, the banana coming out of the fridge question: In the fridge the membranes get much faster porous and so the phenolamines can get much earlier out of the cells. Only the deep temperature in the fridge avoids an oxidation. But if you take the banana out of the fridge it gets brown in only a few hours.
So if you take your banana out of the fridge eat it up and don't forget it lying in kitchen table!

Hi!

On this Blog I will answer questions of the everyday life. Especially the science in your daily life.
I hope you'll enjoy it!