Why can you look at the sun during sunset/sunrise.
In: Physics
You can always look at the sun, you just shouldn’t. This applies to sunrise and sunset as well. The sun will be much less blue due to scattering of blue light by the atmosphere, and something similar will happen with UV light, which makes it somewhat less damaging to your eyes, but still you really shouldn’t.
The sunlight has to go through more of the atmosphere before it reaches your eyes, so more of the light is scattered.
That said, you probably still shouldn’t look at it.
Because you actually can’t.
During sunset and sunrise, you aren’t actually looking directly at the sun.
The sun is actually below the horizon.
What you are looking at is some of the light being bent around by the atmosphere.
This is also why the sunset/rise is red, the atmosphere is only bending those colors.
The bending is also why the sun appears larger.
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