How many sunset sky photos are there on your phone? Hundreds? It might happen every day, but the sight of the sun sinking below an ocean horizon followed by a sky full of reds, oranges ...

While sunset hues are orange and red because blue light is scattered as it passes through more of the atmosphere, Tuesday’s wildfire smoke enhanced them by scattering the light even more.

And because blue wavelengths are the shortest, they get scattered more, resulting in a blue sky. During a sunset, however, light scattering works differently. The sun’s light has a lot further ...