why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

Rayleigh scattering, which is the scientific way of saying "blue light scatters more."

But what does that mean? You know white light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum, right? The blue wavelengths are refracted more, and more of it is directed towards us.
So, imagine you are in New York at noon - lots of the sun's rays are pelting down on you. Now picture the sun's rays that are headed towards Paris. They hit the atmosphere, and some of them get scattered -- more of the blue wavelengths will get scattered towards you, making your sky blue, and leaving a nice pink sunset for the people in Paris.

Answer 2

Here is something interesting to think about: When you look at the sky at night, it is black, with the stars and the moon forming points of light on that black background. So why is it that, during the day, the sky does not remain black with the sun acting as another point of light? Why does the daytime sky turn a bright blue and the stars disappear?

The first thing to recognize is that the sun is an extremely bright source of light -- much brighter than the moon. The second thing to recognize is that the atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere have an effect on the sunlight that passes through them.

There is a physical phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering that causes light to scatter when it passes through particles that have a diameter one-tenth that of the wavelength (color) of the light. Sunlight is made up of all different colors of light, but because of the elements in the atmosphere the color blue is scattered much more efficiently than the other colors.

So when you look at the sky on a clear day, you can see the sun as a bright disk. The blueness you see everywhere else is all of the atoms in the atmosphere scattering blue light toward you. (Because red light, yellow light, green light and the other colors aren't scattered nearly as well, you see the sky as blue.)

Answer 3

It is a mix of reasons.

From Physics it is scattering of light.

Light of sun is white which means it is mix of seven basic colors.

When white light of sun passes through the atmosphere, the blue light is scattered in the atmosphere and other frequencies of light are not scattered. So the color of sky is blue.

The reason of scattering of blue light is in explanation from chemistry.

78% of air is Nitrogen which acts in thick layer of about 100 Kilometers as blue (liquid Nitrogen is blue) so the co lour of sky appears as blue.

White light of sun consist of seven basic colours. Nitrogen absorbs all the colours except the blue and so the colour of sky appears to be blue. At night when there is no light sky appears to be dark. Same happens when one gets out of the atmosphere.

On earth the colour seems to have been always blue as the composition of air does not seem to have been changing in an effect proportion.

On other planets however, change of atmospheric gases will develop different colours of sky.

Answer 4

Many of the different gasses that make up our atmosphere have moisture or water vapor in them. The suns light rays refract off this water vapor and forms different colors of the spectrum sort of like a prism in the sky. In this case the predominate color is blue but there are many other colors mixed in as well.

Answer 5

Technically, the sky is every color BUT blue. Blue is the one color of solar radiation that penetrates all the way down to Our eyes..all the rest are absorbed in the atmosphere (And BTW - the sky is red at sunrise/set for the same reason - longer wavelengths that penetrate all the way to Our eyes).

Answer 6

Something about our ozone layer blocking all the different bands of light that come from the sun, except blue. It's also why the oceans seem to be blue, one huge reflection off the sky.

Answer 7

The light from the sun enters the atmosphere and is then BENT by the atoms of gas. It appears blue because of the angle of the bend. Notice the differance of the angle towards the end of the day when the light has to pass through more atmosphere. You will see this differance as differant colors, such as red and orange

Answer 8

The sky is blue because of the reasons listed above from the previous who aswered your question.

Answer 9

the various gasses that make up the atmosphere give off a blue hue when hit by light rays.

Answer 10

because of the ozone and the atmosphere that is bombarded with radiation and light from the sun and it's like a white candle, you almost can see throught it, but definetely if you light it with a flash on one side it will all be enlighted, because of it's reflections and refractions