Physics, 24.03.2020 20:57 reneewilliams20

Why might the path of longer wavelength light (red light) be mostly unaffected by Earth's atmosphere?

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Answer from: madvitch6111

When light passes through the atmosphere, it undergoes refraction: the ray of light is deviated and changes speed.

The amount of the deviation is given by Snell's Law:

$n_1 sin \theta_1 = n_2 sin \theta_2$ (1)

where

n_1,n_2 are the index of refraction of the first (vacuum, in the space) and second (air, in the atmosphere) medium

$\theta_1,\theta_2$ are the angle that the incident and refracted ray of light make with the normal to the interface between the two mediums

The index of refraction is related to the wavelength of the light, according to:

$n=\frac{\lambda_0}{\lambda}$

where

$\lambda_0$ is the wavelength in a vacuum

$\lambda$ is the wavelength in the medium

This means that the refractive index is higher for a shorter wavelength (blue light), while it is smaller for a longer wavelength (red light).

From eq.(1),

$sin \theta_2 = \frac{n_1}{n_2}sin \theta_1$

However, the first medium is vacuum, so its index of refraction is 1. So we can write:

$sin \theta_2 = \frac{sin \theta_1}{n_2}$

We said that the index of refraction in air is smaller for red light: since n_2 is a number slightly larger than 1, this means that for red light n_2 is closer to 1, and so the difference between $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$ is smaller compared to other colors: and this means that red light is deviated less by the Earth's atmosphere, compared to other colors.

Answer from: Quest

an ion is a charged atom or molecule. it is charged because the number of electrons do not equal the number of protons in the atom or molecule. an atom can acquire a positive charge or a negative charge depending on whether the number of electrons in an atom is greater or less then the number of protons in the atom.

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