Description
Canadian wildfires are pumping so much smoke into the atmosphere that the sun is turning orange-red across parts of North America — sometimes even from thousands of miles away. In this video, I recreate the physics behind it using a flashlight, a tank of water, and a splash of skim milk.
The tiny particles in the milk scatter blue, violet, and green light out of the beam, leaving only yellow, orange, and red light to pass through — the same thing wildfire smoke particles do to sunlight high in the atmosphere. It’s the same underlying phenomenon (Rayleigh scattering) that makes sunsets red and the sky blue.