In the evening, the sky over a city in Zhejiang Province (China) suddenly turned a deep red. Many people felt frightened, and some even claimed that such a sky was a sign of an impending earthquake. What is the actual explanation for this phenomenon?
Recently, residents of Zhoushan City (Zhejiang Province, China) were shocked to see the sky abruptly change to a dark red around 8 PM. This strange, mysterious color prompted many to take photos and post them online, expressing their fear or anxiety.
Netizens immediately speculated wildly about the cause. Some attributed it to pollution, while others wrote: “The sky always turns red before an earthquake.” However, others countered that Zhoushan rarely experiences earthquakes.
The uproar on social media led local meteorological authorities to investigate and subsequently deny rumors that this was a “supernatural” event.
The evening sky suddenly turned red in Zhoushan (Zhejiang Province, China). (Photo: Weibo).
According to meteorological authorities, the red color of the sky was caused by fishing boats testing their lights before heading out to sea. Under certain weather conditions, when there are many tiny water droplets in the atmosphere, the light from the red lamps of the fishing boats interacts with these tiny droplets, resulting in Rayleigh scattering. Because the water droplets are much smaller than the wavelength of light, the light bends and disperses in different directions.
Rayleigh scattering is a rare phenomenon, but the fact that it caused the sky in Zhoushan to turn red has happened before, specifically in 2022. At that time, this topic became a trending search on social media in China, garnering hundreds of millions of views.
The phenomenon of the red sky is attributed to the light from fishing boats. (Photo: Shine.cn).
Some netizens also recalled instances of red skies occurring in various countries during the 18th century, which scientists later suggested were due to intense solar activity. However, regarding the red sky in Zhoushan, researchers in China stated that it differs from the 18th-century events, as there is currently no significant solar activity.
