Christine Allen, age 12, Manitoba, and Paula McDonald., age 13, of Pulaski, Tenn., for their question:

What causes the colors of the sunset?

Sunlight is a band of rainbow colors, all pushing along on different wave lengths. The deep blue rays are the shortest wave lengths and the red rays at the opposite end of the rainbow spectrum are the longest. When the sun is overhead in the daytime, its light comes straight down through about 1,000 miles of atmosphere. In this distance, the gaseous air particles manage to bend and scatter the shortwave blue rays over the sky.

At dawn and sunset, the sun is low in the sky and its light slopes down through perhaps 1,000 miles of air. In this distance, the extra air particles manage to bend and scatter some of the longer wave lengths and we see the sky colored with yellows and bolds, pinks and rosy reds.