Lynn Rathgaber, Age 10, Of Victoria, B.C., Canada, for her question:

Why is the sky prettier at sunset?

You may never guess it, but every sunbeam is a skein of gorgeous colored rays. We see these dazzling rays of ordinary sunlight in the colors of the glimmering rainbow. The falling raindrops in a distant cloud break apart the skein of colors for our eyes to see. The atoms and molecules of the air above our heads also play tricks with the rays of sunlight. They break apart the blue rays and scatter them all over the daytime sky.

At dawn and sunset the sun is low in the sky. Its beams slope down upon the earth and they must cut through a thicker layer of air. This means that more air molecules have a chance to scatter the colored rays of sunlight. We see colors of red and orange, yellow and even pale green splashed across the sky.