That’s basically how I’ve always pictured it, like in my mental physics playground or whatever, the many, many particles may not be dense when you take a small sample (like a cubic foot of air or something) but through miles of atmosphere it adds up and the light has lots to bounce around and off of before it gets to you. Do I basically have that right? That comment someone added makes me think im understanding it right but maybe not explaining my understanding quite right, but maybe you get what I’m trying to say.
Yes, and also different patches of air are different densities because of temperature, or humidity, and they’re neither even nor consistent nor still. Convection makes the atmosphere bubble, wind makes it shear, and all the rest of it. The air itself acts as a lens, and a very inconsistent and unpredictable one at that.
Similar just the impact of dust over a large enough distance.
Try going up to the top of, say, a 50 storey building in a moderately polluted city during a fairly still, warm, dry spell of weather and look down at the ground.
It’ll likely look a lot more dusty than from street level.
That’s basically how I’ve always pictured it, like in my mental physics playground or whatever, the many, many particles may not be dense when you take a small sample (like a cubic foot of air or something) but through miles of atmosphere it adds up and the light has lots to bounce around and off of before it gets to you. Do I basically have that right? That comment someone added makes me think im understanding it right but maybe not explaining my understanding quite right, but maybe you get what I’m trying to say.
Yes, and also different patches of air are different densities because of temperature, or humidity, and they’re neither even nor consistent nor still. Convection makes the atmosphere bubble, wind makes it shear, and all the rest of it. The air itself acts as a lens, and a very inconsistent and unpredictable one at that.
Similar just the impact of dust over a large enough distance.
Try going up to the top of, say, a 50 storey building in a moderately polluted city during a fairly still, warm, dry spell of weather and look down at the ground.
It’ll likely look a lot more dusty than from street level.