Ever Seen A 'Green Sunrise?' This Remarkable Real-life Optical Illusion In Maui Might Change Your Mind
We've all seen tricky pictures and drawings that play with our minds, but have you ever encountered a real-life optical illusion? If not, today is your chance to do so. We have all experienced breathtaking sunrises in our lives on planet Earth, but have you ever seen one turn green??
Well, if not, you might want to take a trip to Hawaii!
Real-Life Optical Illusion In Hawaii
While it's not something you see every day, fortunate visitors to Hawaii might witness a rare phenomenon known as the green flash during?sunrise?or sunset.
The green flash is a visual trick where the top edge of the orange sun briefly changes colour to green as it sets or rises above the horizon. The Valley Isle, as well as the entire Hawaiian archipelago, is among the world's top spots for observing this fascinating optical illusion phenomenon.
The Green Flash is a very brief burst of emerald colour that occurs right at the very end of a sunset or just as a sunrise begins. This flash looks like a smudge, a dot, or even a vertical streak just above the top edge of the sun. It only lasts for a few seconds, so the term "flash" is quite fitting.
It goes by several other names, including more poetic ones like "Neptune's Wink." Seeing the Green Flash is not common, but the conditions for it are pretty typical in Hawaii. If you're in Maui and can watch sunsets for a week or two, your chances of witnessing this unique green burst above the sun are quite good!
Why Does The Sun Turn Green?
The easiest way to explain the Green Flash involves something called atmospheric refraction. Refraction means that light from a source, like the sun in this case, bends.
When the sun is near the horizon, its light spreads out into different colours because of its various wavelengths, like how a prism works. The longer-wavelength colours, like red, bend less than the shorter-wavelength ones. So, red disappears first, and blue and violet take longer to vanish. Green falls in the middle in terms of wavelength, so you'd anticipate it to disappear between red and blue/violet.
Sunlight undergoes atmospheric scattering due to molecules like water vapour and airborne particles, with shorter wavelengths scattering more. This explains the blue sky when the sun is high.
During sunrise or sunset, the sun's light travels through more atmosphere, scattering short-wavelength blue but revealing longer, less-scattered red hues. The final refracted blues and violets often remain hidden, making medium-wavelength green, bent more than red, the last visible sun colour, known as the Green Flash.
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