[For those with the chance, check out the sunset! I'm curious about this, but here in Florida all we have are rainy nights; not so colorful, rather gloomy. I would just paste a link, but years from now if I'm digging through my own posts the link will have become expired, and I'd have no idea what I was talking about...]. 
Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com clara Moskowitz
livescience Staff Writer
livescience.com
–
Wed Jul 1, 11:10 am ETundefined
Many people in the United States and Europe are seeing
gorgeous lavender sunsets lately thanks to the eruption more than two weeks ago
of Russia's Sarychev Peak volcano.
The volcano blew its top June 12, generating a remarkable
shock wave in the atmosphere seen in a photo taken by astronauts. It also hurled
massive plumes of sulfur dioxide into the air, and that material has been
circling the globe.
Deep purple hues and ripples of white characterize the
spectacular views the past few evenings.
The phenomenon occurs when the ash
and fine particles sprayed high into the atmosphere by the volcano scatter
light. The sulfur dioxide ejected by Sarychev Peak interacts with the
atmosphere to form tiny particles called sulfate aerosols.
Light scattering happens all the time. It's why the sky is
blue and sunsets often red or orange. Particles in the atmosphere scatter
short-wavelength blue light more effectively, to make the sky appear
blue. When the sun sets, its rays have more atmosphere to travel though to
reach our eyes, so more of the long-wavelength red light makes the journey.
Lately, the volcanic aerosols are combining with the normal
scattering particles to create more obstacles for light to pass through,
increasing the coloring effect.
"I could tell, late in the evening that there was
'something' to the clouds, the lighting as the sun was setting was off, so I
found a nice view of the horizon and waited," wrote Liem Bahneman of
Kirkland, Washington, who posted photos he took of the sunset on June 28 on
SpaceWeather.com. "The aerosols light up well after the normal sunset has
expired, so it takes some patience, but it is well worth it to experience the
violet."
"This evening, the
volcanic aerosols were still visible over Kentucky," Rick Schrantz, of
Nicholasville, Ky., wrote on SpaceWeather.com. "The delicate wispy
streamers were a beautiful background for a few regular clouds."
Similarly colorful scenes were spotted across the Northern Hemisphere
in August 2008, when Alaska's Kasatochi volcano
erupted. One of the most dramatic volcanic eruptions in modern history - Pinatubo's
1991 explosion in the Phillipines - ejected so much material into the
atmosphere that global temperatures dropped by about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5
degrees Celsius). The last time Sarychev Peak blew was 1989.
).
).
