how blue is the sky?

Answer 1

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

Sky blue.

Answer 3

It isn't Blue.

It's grey

But really this is the reason.

Transmitted light (from the sun, light bulbs, fire, etc) is made up of a spectrum of colors. The longest wavelengths of light are on the red end of the spectrum and the shortest wavelengths are on the blue/violet end of the spectrum.

When transmitted light such as sunlight enters our atmosphere it collides with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The color with the shorter wavelength is scattered more by this collision. Because violet and blue are the shortest wavelengths the sky appears to be violet / blue. But because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light than they are violet light, we perceive the sky as blue.

Our eyes contain thousand of rods and cones, which are the receptors for light. Whenever one of the 3 Stooges pokes you in the eye you see a giant blue spot. This is because the blue receptors have been activated. Blue is one of the primary colors and thus more easily activated and seen by our eyes.

Blue is also how I feel when my baby leaves and my hound dog dies. Also, how I feel when the cops pull me over and I see their blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror. Then, again, blue is the color of the K-mart special, so this color isn't all bad.


Why is the sky blue: Summary
So, why is the sky blue? It is because blue light from the sun strikes the air molecules and scatters and our eyes perceive it as blue.


Why is the sky blue: Short Summary
Why is the sky blue, you ask? Blue in sunlight collides with air molecules and our eyes see it as blue.



Why is the sky blue: Condensed
Sunlight collides with air, scatters blue wavelengths.


Why is the sky blue: Ultra-Condensed.
You are seeing things. Stop asking.

Answer 4

The sky isn't blue, at least not where I live, at the moment the only blue thing by me is the water running down the street that is threatening to flood us all.....

Answer 5

Diffuse sky radiation is solar radiation reaching the earth's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or suspensoids in the atmosphere. Also called skylight, diffuse skylight, or sky radiation. Of the total light removed from the direct solar beam by scattering in the atmosphere (approximately 25 percent of the incident radiation), about two-thirds ultimately reaches the earth as diffuse sky radiation.

Scattering is the process by which small particles suspended in a medium of a different index of refraction diffuse a portion of the incident radiation in all directions. In (elastic) scattering, no energy transformation results, only a change in the spatial distribution of the radiation. The science of optics usually uses the term to refer to the deflection of photons that occurs when they are absorbed and re-emitted by atoms or molecules.

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.

Scattering and absorption are major causes of the attenuation of radiation by the atmosphere. Scattering varies as a function of the ratio of the particle diameter to the wavelength of the radiation. When this ratio is less than about one-tenth, Rayleigh scattering occurs in which the scattering coefficient varies inversely as the fourth power of the wavelength. At larger values of the ratio of particle diameter to wavelength, the scattering varies in a complex fashion described, for spherical particles, by the Mie theory; at a ratio of the order of 10, the laws of geometric optics begin to apply.

Individual gas molecules are too small to scatter light effectively. However, in a gas, the molecules move more or less independently of each-other, unlike in liquids and solids where the density is determined the molecule's sizes. So the densities of gases, such as pure air, are subject to statistical fluctuations. Significant fluctuations are much more common on a small scale. It is mainly these density fluctuations on a small (tens of nanometers) scale that cause the sky to be blue.

Answer 6

sky is not at all blue.Its because of the reflection of light rays by the dust particles when the sun rays fall on them.so the colour change blue varies depending upon the amount of reflection but now way the sky is blue in colour.

Answer 7

The sky is as blue as you want it to be. I mean it's all in how you look at it. Half-blue or half-cloudy. Maybe 3/4th blue.

Answer 8

technically- the sky isn't blue at all. all we see is the reflected blue light from the sun... nothing more nothing less. in which case- nothing actually has a color. what you see is reflected light. but, if you /don't/ want to be technical, the sky is pure blue, except in places with much pollution- such is life...

Answer 9

Very blue

Answer 10

The sky is not blue basically, it seems so because of the huge and immeasurable distance from earth.