why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

http://www.answers.com/rayleigh%20scattering


Rayleigh scattering (named after Lord Rayleigh) is the scattering of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles much smaller than the wavelength of the light. It occurs when light travels in transparent solids and liquids, but is most prominently seen in gases. Rayleigh scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere is the main reason light from the sky is blue.

Answer 2

In light, there is no such colour as white. White is the combination of 7 colours (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet; Think ROY.G.BIV, famous ubernerd).

Some surface are refractive, they bend light. But Red bends more than Violet, and all the different colours in between bend differently. This splits the white into it's 7 composite colours. Of the refraction, blue tends to be the most prominent as the others tend to be blocked by the others.

Shine a torch on a mirror in a bowl of water, and the reflected light should show up a the spectrum.

The atmosphere acts like a bowl of water, and a refractive surface. It bends the white light into the 7, 6 of them are masked in the atmosphere, so blue comes through as the most clear.

When the sun is setting, and the angle of sunlight changes, some of the other colours can be seen, i.e. a redf sunset.

When there is no sun to create a refraction on the sky, we see the stars past the atmosphere on a black sky.

Answer 3

The blue color of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air.

However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue. As you look closer to the horizon, the sky appears much paler in color. To reach you, the scattered blue light must pass through more air. Some of it gets scattered away again in other directions. Less blue light reaches your eyes. The color of the sky near the horizon appears paler or white. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OCEAN, don't listen to these people. Becasue the sky is blue even when the ocean is no around. And if u seen NYC oceans that water isnt blue at all. The ocean may seem blue at times because the sky is reflecting off of it.

Answer 4

The blue colour of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air.

However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

Answer 5

Its not,put that exact question into Google and you will get the answer:
Tyndall and Rayleigh thought that the blue colour of the sky must be due to small particles of dust and droplets of water vapour in the atmosphere. Even today, people sometimes incorrectly say that this is the case. Later scientists realised that if this were true, there would be more variation of sky colour with humidity or haze conditions than was actually observed, so they supposed correctly that the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the air are sufficient to account for the scattering. The case was finally settled by Einstein in 1911, who calculated the detailed formula for the scattering of light from molecules; and this was found to be in agreement with experiment. He was even able to use the calculation as a further verification of Avogadro's number when compared with observation. The molecules are able to scatter light because the electromagnetic field of the light waves induces electric dipole moments in the molecules.

Answer 6

Okay to answer quetions here. Oh i love this.
Grass is green because of a chemical called chlorophyll which is contained in the cells of the plant.
The sky is (roughly) that part of the atmosphere or of outer space visible from the surface of the earth where a collection of chemicals which include ammonia among others combine and along with the levels of air pressure (which are all different all the way down to the ground) scatter sunlight and the blue is formed. That deep blue colour is the top and it appears to get lighter as it goes down.
The sky is always blue, it is just sometimes covered by cloud. Clouds by the way are caused by the sun. The sun evapourates water which rises in to the lower pressure levels (the sky), the water vapour gathers together to form clouds which as they get more and more saturated lower and become 'darker', then it falls as rain. It most often falls where there are planty of hills, mountains etc as the clouds need to release water vapour to rise over them. Depending on the temperature in the atmosphere it can either form as rain, snow, sleet, hailstones, etc.
Thunder is the sound generated by lightning produced by a sudden and violent expansion of super-heated air in and along the electrical discharge channel path. The itype of sound depends upon atmospheric conditions and distance between lightning and the listener. The closer the lightning, the louder the thunder. Nearly all lightning is generated by thunderstorms. Lightnening is caused by a build up in electric charge in the earths atmosphere.Positive and negative charges build up and clash, gases in the air act as an insulator to prevent the flow of electricity. (think of feathers on a bird or the quilt on your bed they that stop you bed getting too cold only this time it tries to prevent too much electiricity building up). When the electricity builds up to overcome air resistance of the, lightning will occur. The charge will try to reach a lower electri potential - the ground. Just like when you might storm out of a room after an argument with your parents.

Answer 7

Its basically due to the sun. The light that enters the atmosphere is scattered by oxygen and nitrogen molecules. This in turn makes the sky appear blue [the wavelength is affected more than the green and red wavelength]. Later in evening this mixes with dust particles in the air which then produces red sky at night effect!

Hope this helps!

Answer 8

During daylight the sky has the appearance of an opaque blue surface, but this is the result of the air scattering sunlight. There is no "blue object" above the earth in any normal sense, so it is hard to say what object the sky is.

Answer 9

Blue Sky. The blue color of the sky is caused by the scattering of sunlight off ... at short wavelengths (the blue end of the visible spectrum). Therefore the light scattered

Answer 10

The sky is blue because the refraction of water reflects the clouds and it looks like blue

Answer 11

the sky is blue because light is made up of many colours. when the sun light penitrates the earths atomos the light is split (just like a prism ) and it is the blue light that is more dominant. you get a red sky at night because the suns rays are slicing through the atmos at a steeper angle and the red becomes more dominant.

Jeeesss i'm a sad boring f*ck to know that...