Why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

Cause God made it that way!

Answer 2

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 3

That is incorrect, the sky is not blue, the sky is black.

What makes the sky appear blue is the reflection of sunlight on the atmosphere. This light is broken down by the water molecules filtering out most of the other colors, the one color that does get through is blue. That's why the sky 'appears' to be blue, but in reality it is black.

Answer 4

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.

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. Blue in sunlight collides with air molecules and our eyes see it as blue.

Answer 5

It is because blue light from the sun strikes the air molecules and scatters and our eyes perceive it as blue.
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

Answer 6

The phenomenon is called Ellipicity. Light that shines on an surface from a perpendicular trajectory results in a blue shift, thus the atmosphere turns blue. Light that shines on a surface from a flat angle causes a red shift. This is why dawn and dusk have similar brilliant orange/red horizons.

Answer 7

The chemical composition in the atmosphere works like a prism. A prism refracts light a certain way, the light from the sun is refracted towards a blue color most of the day.

Answer 8

You've gotten a couple of good answers (the ones that are all sciencey), but I just wanted to add that the people who say it reflects the oceans have it backwards -- the oceans look blue because they reflect the sky.

Answer 9

Preferential scattering of blue light

Answer 10

Dam everyone answered this question and i study earth science for too long
what was the point to write the answer

Answer 11

I'll not answer this question again, look it up. I'll take the 2 points