heres one from my kids?

Question

My kids are asking why is the sky blue?

please no nasty comments it's for my kids, thanks

Answer 1

You have plenty of 'scientific' answers on here...so I asked my 4 year old.

He says, "The sky is blue so that the white clouds can show up...it's magical"

;-)

Answer 2

I'm assuming your children are quite young so...
The sky is rainbow coloured, because it is filled with light from the sun. This is a mix of all the colours there are, which look white mixed together.
To demonstrate, take a circle of card, divide into 7 segments, colour them R(red),O,Y,G,B,I,V. Punch two holes near the centre, thread a string through, tie in a loop, spin it to twist the string, pull tight to unwind it. The spinning colours should merge to white(ish).

When the light hits things at an angle, the colours often split up.
To demonstrate, let just a beam of light through the curtains, (a bright torch may work) and spray a mist of water though the beam, a rainbow should appear.

The small things the light hits in the sky (molecules) split off a lot of blue light, we can see, other things change the amounts of the other colours we can see. Mist and rain make rainbows, the sun being low down and dust can make orange and red sky, clouds can bloke out light, or even out the colour again to white. Our eyes are more sensitive to some colours, eg. blue over violet.

So the sky isn't blue, you have to look all the time and check. Look at night and ask what colour it is? If you live in the city, probably orange, from reflected light from below. If you are in the country it might look a deep indigo/violet colour. Never quite black.
Good Luck.

Answer 3

Its not, it reflects the ocean and looks blue. or is it the ocean looks blue cause it reflects the sky....hhmmmmm...

but this is the real answer

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.

Answer 4

A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.
Lots more info for the kids on the website below, if they're really interested in learning more.

Answer 5

Long (but accurate) answer.

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 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.

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.

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. The different colors of light are all reflected by the particle in the same way. The reflected light appears white because it still contains all of the same colors.

Gas molecules are smaller than the wavelength of visible light. If light bumps into them, it acts differently. When light hits a gas molecule, some of it may get absorbed. After awhile, the molecule radiates (releases, or gives off) the light in a different direction. The color that is radiated is the same color that was absorbed. The different colors of light are affected differently. All of the colors can be absorbed. But the higher frequencies (blues) are absorbed more often than the lower frequencies (reds). This process is called Rayleigh scattering. (It is named after Lord John Rayleigh, an English physicist, who first described it in the 1870's.)

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.

Answer 6

its something to do with the sun light gets scattered by dust / gas molecules and when the sky is blue its cos the light rays with shorter wavelengths are being scattered the more dust and the bigger the particles makes the sky appear white/hazy bit complicated really but hope it helps or sommat like that x

Answer 7

Because it is your kids who want to know, .......
the light of the sun gets diffracted through air as through a prism. All colors other than blue get diffracted away from us, whereas the blue gets diffracted towards us, and we see the sky as blue. If we are on the moon where there is no air. we see the sky as black.

Answer 8

the sky is blue because when light enters the atmosphere the colours get absorbed except for blue and that is why it appears blue hope this helps if not dorling Kingsley publish many educational books that are fun for kids to read

Answer 9

the particles in the sky are hit by light from the sun which only obsorbes or translates
to blue light. That's also why the sky is black at night time because there's no light to
hit the particles.

Answer 10

The Earth's atmosphere is made up of many molecules of oxygen, nitrogen, Cabon dioxide etc. As you ascend in the atmosphere density levels decrease so in effect the air thins as you go up.
Visible light is made up of many different colours or wavelengths of light. As it passes through the atmosphere the shorter wavelenghts of light are mainly absorbed by the molecules in the air. These light waves are reflected so that we can see them. Longer wavelengths of light such as red just pass straight through. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.