“It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” Marion said. “Like a painting.”

“What makes the sky look like that?” Julie asked her father. She never asked her mother questions like that because whenever she did, her mother would simply say, “Ask you father.” And so she did.

“It’s the sun’s rays glowing from just below the horizon and being reflected in the clouds,” Burt answered. “When the sun sets, sunlight has to pass through more air than in the daytime. When sunlight travels through more atmosphere, it provides more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from our eyes.”

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