4 - Sunset and sunrise

Summary

It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this time of year, and the sky, pure violet in the zenith, was leaden to the northward, and murky to the east, where over the snowy down or ewelease on Weatherbury Upper Farm, and apparently resting upon the ridge, the only half of the Sun yet visible burnt rayless, like a red and flameless fire over a white hearthstone. The whole effect resembled sunset as childhood resembles age.

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, New Wessex Edition, Macmillan, 1977

Sunset

Are there significant differences between sunrise and sunset? It is a question I often ask myself, and to which I have yet to find a definitive answer, if indeed there is one. Other than that events in one occur in the reverse order to events in the other, it seems to me that any physical differences are those of detail only. By and large, it seems the conditions that give rise to a splendid sunset are exactly the same as those that produce an equally memorable sunrise, although it has been said that these conditions occur more often at the end of the day. Most of us have seen the Sun set many more times than we have seen it rise, and so it's difficult to judge the truth of this.