It was a cold, sunny day and the ground was covered with fresh snow. maria wore her black sweatshirt outside to play in the snow. she knew that black would light waves and keep her warm.

refract

absorb

diffract

reflect

The correct answer is absorb.

Explanation:

In the given problem, It was a cold, sunny day and the ground was covered with fresh snow. Maria wore her black sweatshirt outside to play in the snow.

A black color is a good absorber while the white color is good reflector.

Black objects absorb all the incident radiations which falls on them regardless of the frequencies of the radiations while the white reflects all the incidents radiations completely.

Therefore, she knew that black would absorb light waves and help keep her warm.

scattering of light by tiny particles in air to produce the colors we see on sky, is dependent on the following factors:

(i) wavelength of light

(ii) size of the scattering particle  

(iii) distance traveled by light through the atmosphere.

according to rayleigh's law of scattering, the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of its wavelength. shorter the wavelength, greater is its scattering. hence violet/blue light is scattered more than red.

sun's light is a composite light ( visible light) with wavelengths in the range 400 nm (violet) to 700 nm (red). as sunlight passes through our atmosphere, the molecules of air scatter light according to their wavelengths. during sunrise and sunset, the sun's position is below the horizon. hence light from the sun travels a greater distance in the atmosphere when compared to its position a noon.

as sunlight enters the earth's atmosphere, blue light is scattered away and at the end of its journey in the sky, only red and orange wavelengths remain in the beam.

hence at sunrise and sunset, the sky appears reddish orange.