Why is the sky blue? ( this was a dare question)?

Answer 1

On a clear sunny day, the sky above us looks bright blue. In the evening, the sunset puts on a brilliant show of reds, pinks and oranges. Why is the sky blue? What makes the sunset red?

To answer these questions, we must learn about light, and the Earth's atmosphere.



THE ATMOSPHERE
The atmosphere is the mixture of gas molecules and other materials surrounding the earth. It is made mostly of the gases nitrogen (78%), and oxygen (21%). Argon gas and water (in the form of vapor, droplets and ice crystals) are the next most common things. There are also small amounts of other gases, plus many small solid particles, like dust, soot and ashes, pollen, and salt from the oceans.

The composition of the atmosphere varies, depending on your location, the weather, and many other things. There may be more water in the air after a rainstorm, or near the ocean. Volcanoes can put large amounts of dust particles high into the atmosphere. Pollution can add different gases or dust and soot.

The atmosphere is densest (thickest) at the bottom, near the Earth. It gradually thins out as you go higher and higher up. There is no sharp break between the atmosphere and space.



LIGHT WAVES
Light is a kind of energy that radiates, or travels, in waves. Many different kinds of energy travel in waves. For example, sound is a wave of vibrating air. Light is a wave of vibrating electric and magnetic fields. It is one small part of a larger range of vibrating electromagnetic fields. This range is called the electromagnetic spectrum.

Electromagnetic waves travel through space at 299,792 km/sec (186,282 miles/sec). This is called the speed of light.






The energy of the radiation depends on its wavelength and frequency. Wavelength is the distance between the tops (crests) of the waves. Frequency is the number of waves that pass by each second. The longer the wavelength of the light, the lower the frequency, and the less energy it contains.



COLORS OF LIGHT
Visible light is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can see. Light from the sun or a light bulb may look white, but it is actually a combination of many colors. We can see the different colors of the spectrum by splitting the light with a prism. The spectrum is also visible when you see a rainbow in the sky.







The colors blend continuously into one another. At one end of the spectrum are the reds and oranges. These gradually shade into yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The colors have different wavelengths, frequencies, and energies. Violet has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum. That means it has the highest frequency and energy. Red has the longest wavelength, and lowest frequency and energy.



LIGHT IN THE AIR
Light travels through space in a straight line as long as nothing disturbs it. As light moves through the atmosphere, it continues to go straight until it bumps into a bit of dust or a gas molecule. Then what happens to the light depends on its wave length and the size of the thing it hits.

Dust particles and water droplets are much larger than the wavelength of visible light. When light hits these large particles, it gets reflected, or bounced off, in different directions

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Answer 2

It has to do with the spectrum of color on the earth, the oxygen interior the air and the attitude at which you view the sky. To be precise: Blue Sky is an Optical Phenomenon. that's an experience which would be referred to which ends up from the interplay of sunshine and count. The blue interior the sky we see is scattered blue gentle. The blue color of the sky is using Rayleigh scattering. As gentle strikes interior the path of the ambience most of the longer wavelengths bypass as we communicate by way of. Shorter wavelength gentle is scattered via the gasoline molecules. The scattered blue gentle is then radiated in distinctive guidelines. It gets scattered all over the sky.

Answer 3

This has nothing to do with ozone. The atmosphere itself, which is made of very small particles scatters short-wavelength blue light. Longer wavelength light (red and orange) requires larger particles to scatter it. This scattered blue light then reflects off of the rest of the atmosphere again, pinballing its way to your eye, causing the entire sky to appear blue.

This is also why the sun changes colour during the day. At noon, the sun is yellow because there is little atmosphere between you and it (the sun actually emits most of it's light at a green wavelength, but because of the scattering, it appears redder). During the morning or evening, the sun is low in the sky and there is more atmosphere that its rays must travel through, causing it to appear orange and even red.

Answer 4

Because of the atmosphere. The sky is blue partly because air scatters short-wavelength light in preference to longer wavelengths. Where the sunlight is nearly tangent to the Earth's surface, the light's path through the atmosphere is so long that much of the blue and even yellow light is scattered out, leaving the sun rays and the clouds it illuminates red, at sunrise and sunset.

Answer 5

Nitrogen.As light passes through the atmosphere it collides with particles.Blue light has shorter wavelenghts which permits it to pass through.Heres an interesting fact.On Mars the sky is pink!

Answer 6

The Ozone layer is made of 03 to protect us from the sun's deadly ultraviolet ray's if it was 02 just oxygen we would all be dead. 03 bends the light through the prism to create blue!

Answer 7

Because air scatters all but the shortest wavelenghts of light, the blue ones.

Answer 8

there is O3 (ozone) in the stratosphere. the properties of ozone are that it is unstable in the lower atmosphere and that it is blue.

Answer 9

its really not blue you just think it is...its actually red

Answer 10

Because that is the way God made it!