Thinking about it some more, I think I understand why the equatorial terminator region doesn't look all that blue from the side. The light that is not scattered early on tends to be redder than the incoming light; some of that eventually gets scattered too. So in essence we're seeing reddish sunset/sunrise light that then gets tinted blue in the scattering process, resulting in sort of a wash.
Also, when looking from the vicinity of the Sun (places such as Earth), the limb of the planet is darkened somewhat because it's both the horizon and the terminator, which makes it harder to see the blue of Rayleigh scattering around the edges.
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more thoughts on the terminator
Date: 2005-02-27 09:46 am (UTC)Also, when looking from the vicinity of the Sun (places such as Earth), the limb of the planet is darkened somewhat because it's both the horizon and the terminator, which makes it harder to see the blue of Rayleigh scattering around the edges.