Friday, September 7, 2012

Red Sky at Night...

In 2012 it seems like we have seen more rainbows than in the past lotsa years combined, and tonite's was the most brilliant yet.  All eyes in our car were on the sky, and we noticed that the sunset wasn't too shabby either.  Loic was asking his usual questions...What makes a rainbow?  Why is it raining when the sun is out?  Why can't we see all of the rainbow?  Are we almost to Culver's?  Why is the sunset so red?...and here's where Laurence stepped in to help.  It went something like this "You see, Loic, when the sun is low in the sky it's rays (insert rather intelligent explanation here with words like reflection, scatter, atmosphere, etc)....and that's why the sunset makes the sky look red."  He went on to say, "The atmosphere is really like a big pair of sunglasses for the earth and helps scatter the light so it's not so intense....but the light is still really strong, which is why you should never look directly at the sun with your naked eye."  Bill & I glanced at each other, wondering where & how he absorbs all that stuff, and I start to respond, "Great answer, Laurence, you really--" when I was interrupted a giggling Loic, "Laurence said 'naked eye!'"  And then we all had ice cream.