The red hues of the sky at sunset and sunrise are caused by
Mie Scattering, not Rayleigh Scattering. The colours of the
sky throughout the day and at sunrise and sunset, are explained by the phenomena of both Rayleigh Scattering and Mie Scattering. The colour of the sky described by Rayleigh Scattering applies to the hues of blue, violet and green, not to the reds, oranges, peaches and purples of sunrise and sunset. Rayleigh Scattering is scattering of shorter wavelength light (e.g. blue & violet) by air atoms and molecules (not statistical variations in density of the Earth's atmosphere). The magnitude or strength of Rayleigh Scattering varies by the reciprocal of the wavelength raised to the fourth power, and hence does not explain the beautiful variations of reds, purples, oranges and peachy colours. The latter colours arise from Mie Scattering, low angle scattering of light off dust, soot, smoke and (ash) particles. Mie Scattering (producing the colours of sunset and sunrise) is beautifully recognizable down-wind of and after dust storms, forest fires and volcanic eruptions that inject large quantities of fine particulate matter into the atmosphere. (Ref Wikipedia) 5. The diagram below shows Rosalind Franklin's x-ray diffraction imag of DNA. X-ray diffraction pattern for a single alum crystal. Image by Dr H. J. Milledge, Department of Geology, University College, London http://www.hasdeu.bz.edu.ro/softuri/fizica/mariana/Atomica/Bragg/home.html One of my Laue photographs of the x-ray diffraction from a single crystal YALO 3 sample (yttrium aluminum perovskite) with the cytsallographic A-axis oriented normal to the picture.