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Subscribe to RSSA herd of deer runs through a snowy field in a village near Czestochowa, Poland, at sunset on April 7.
Janek Skarzynski / AFP - Getty Images
David Ebener / AFP - Getty Images
Red skies delight in Germany
The setting sun illuminates the sky above the towers of Michaelsberg monastery in Bamberg, Germany, Dec. 29.
Philip Brown / Reuters
Cricket on the beach under an electric-orange sky
A boy hits a ball as people walk along the seafront in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Oct. 6, 2012. The World Twenty20 cricket final will be played Sunday in Colombo.
Danish Siddiqui / Reuters
Glow of a sunset and the lure of a fortune teller
Shyaam, 28, holds a headset to a fortune telling machine as he calls out to customers at Juhu Beach in Mumbai August 24.
From Russia with love? Siberian wildfire smoke means rosy sunsets in Seattle
Gil Aegerter / msnbc.com
The sunset in Seattle, Wash., on Sunday drew this crowd at Gasworks Park.
The Pacific Northwest and Canada's British Columbia can thank Russia for some fantastic sunsets in recent days. Smoke from several dozen wildfires in Siberia has been wafting over the Pacific, turning the skies a brilliant red and orange at dusk. The downside has been some rather hazy daylight at times.
"It isn’t uncommon for smoke from large wildfires in Siberia to be lofted high enough into the atmosphere that winds push plumes of it across the Pacific Ocean to North America," NASA noted on its Earth Observatory website while showing a satellite view of the smoke.
In Seattle, University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass tipped off followers of his blog that the smoke would produce some red sunsets along the coast and northwest parts of the state.
But the smoke has also meant some haze, especially farther north in British Columbia, Claire Martin, a meteorologist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., said on the CBC website.
"It's looping below the Aleutians and then back to Vancouver," Martin said of the smoke.
NASA last month reported its scientists were tracking the smoke now that wildfire season has started in Russia and other parts of Asia.
"The smoke plumes were lofted up to at least 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the intense heat of the fires," NASA scientist Colin Seftor stated of an event in early June. "At that point the smoke got picked up by higher level winds."
"Not only smoke and dust can get carried long distance," he added. "Pollutants, and even disease-carrying spores can be carried by the prevailing winds."
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Episcopal Church becomes biggest US church to bless gay unions
- From Russia with love? Siberian wildfire smoke means rosy sunsets in Seattle
- Farmer says Arkansas drought turns cattle ranch into 'desert'
- Video: Alligator bites off Florida teen's arm
- Hiker awaiting help for broken leg ends up rescuing his rescuer
Half moon over Moose Meadow at sunset
Andy Clark / Reuters
A half moon sits over Moose Meadow at sunset in Banff National Park near Lake Louise, Alberta, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011.
Karen Bleier / AFP - Getty Images
The sun sets over the Gulf of Mexico near Key West, Fla, on Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Watch an eclipse and sunset on Mars
We've just had a lovely total lunar eclipse on Earth — so how about watching a solar eclipse on Mars? Pictures from NASA's Opportunity rover record just such an event, which occurred on Nov. 9. Neither of Mars' moons is big enough to cover the whole disk of the sun during an eclipse, so a partial blackout is the best Phobos could do in this video clip.
After the eclipse, you'll see a typical Martian sunset, stitched together from exposures taken on Nov. 4 and 5. The 30-second sequence is a speeded-up rendition of a sunset that would take 17 minutes in real time. The sky looks blue around the sun in these pictures because of the scattering effect produced by dust particles of a particular size in the Martian atmosphere. Farther away from the sun, the Martian sky takes on more of a reddish cast.
The scientists who created the rover movies say they're the next-best thing to being there. "These visualizations of an alien sunset show what it must have looked like for Opportunity, in a way we rarely get to see, with motion," rover science team member Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University said in a NASA image advisory. Simulated images were added to the sequences to produce a smooth viewing experience.
More moving pictures from Mars:
- Deimos moves across the sun
- Watch Martian clouds fly by
- See a dust devil spin on Mars
- NASA movies from Opportunity
- NASA movies from Spirit rover
For the eclipse movie, the image sequencing was done by Emily Dean, Dale Theiling, Elaina McCartney and Jon Proton. Image processing was done by Jim Bell and Mark Lemmon. Event timing was handled by Tom Duxbury. The team expressed thanks to members of the operations and support teams in the NASA/JPL Mars Exploration Program and Deep Space Network. Credit for both movies goes to NASA, JPL-Caltech, Cornell University and Texas A&M.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Biswaranjan Rout / AP
An Indian village boy returns with his cattle at sunset on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India on Thursday, Dec.16, 2010. A piece of bamboo is seen hung from the neck of one of the cattle to prevent it from running away.
Sea turtles arrive in Costa Rica to lay their eggs
YURI CORTEZ / AFP - Getty Images
Olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) arrive to spawn in Ostional beach, in Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, about 186 miles north of San Jose, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, at sunset on November 30, 2010. Massive arrivals of sea turtles, known as "Arribadas", happen in Ostional and members of the Integral Development Association of Ostional estimate that about 800 thousand may arrive this year to lay their eggs.
This photo just moved. Must be an amazing sight to see.
Abed Al Hashlamoun / EPA
Sunset in the West Bank city of Hebron, Nov. 25.
Sunset over Hebron
Blazing sky.