Green and Blue Flashes at Sunset over Norway | Earth Science
Astrophotographer Ronny Tertnes: "Tonight's sunset gave us good Greenslashes that were also Blue . . . I haven't seen that very often . . . "
Blue flashes are formed in the same way as green flashes. A mirage magnifies tiny differences in the atmospheric refraction of red, green and blue light. Blue flashes are harder to see than green flashes because blue flashes blend into the surrounding blue sky. When the air is exceptionally clear, however, the blue flash emerges.
This trick of light occurs at sunset and sunrise when light from the Sun travels through the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere. Acting like a prism, Earth's atmosphere bends, or refracts, the light and separates it into its component wavelengths. Blue and violet light are usually scattered by the atmosphere, while red, orange, and yellow are refracted below the solar disk below the horizon, leaving the green light the most visible during the few seconds that the Sun disappears below the horizon.
Atmospheric layers create altitude-variable refractions that take light from the top of the Sun, dispersing its colors, creating multiple images, and magnifying it in just the right way to make thin slivers appear green (and blue), just before it disappears.
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast.
Location: Bergen, Norway
Date: April 26, 2026
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