The Sun Also Rises
Credit:
STS-47 Crew,
NASA
Sunrise seen from low Earth orbit by the shuttle astronauts can be very
dramatic indeed (
and the authors apologize
to Hemingway for
using his title!).
In this breathtaking view,
the Sun is just visible peaking
over towering anvil-shaped
storm clouds whose silhouetted tops mark the
upper boundary of the troposphere, the lowest layer
of planet Earth's atmosphere.
Sunlight filtering through suspended dust causes this dense
layer of air to appear red.
In contrast, the blue stripe marks the
stratosphere, the tenuous upper atmosphere, which preferentially
scatters blue light.