Abstract
THE explanation of the bluish (?) green flash of light sometimes seen at sunset given in your note last week (p. 495) does not seem to me to be a sufficient explanation of all the observations. If the phenomenon were due simply to refraction it would last for only a fraction of a second, and the colour would be much more blue than green. But, so far as my own observations go, the colour may last for several seconds, and is a bright peagreen, exactly similar to that shown by the sun many degrees above the horizon in South India in September 1883. To produce that green, as I have shown elsewhere, all that is required is the absorption due to a great thickness of vapour, combined with a certain amount of dust—water dust or other.
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SMITH, C. The Green Flash at Sunset. Nature 41, 538 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/041538b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041538b0
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