why is the sky blue?

Question

does it reflect off the ocean?

Answer 1

Didn't we just answer this question the other day? Otherworldtrader is the closest so far, the others answers are just crazy. Rayleigh scattering is the reason for blue skies. The water vapor in the atmosphere acts as a prism and bends the incoming light from the sun. The thickness of the atmosphere is what causes it to bend into the blue spectrum. The red and oranges at sunset are caused by Mie scattering and the fact that the rays are traveling through a thicker portion of atmosphere. Some people falsely say that it is because your eyes see blue better than other colors, and this is true to some extent during sunrises and sunsets, which is why you never see green, the eye more easily sees the blue and the green next to it is sometimes lost to your eye, but during the day it has nothing to do with it.

Answer 2

It was Einstein who answered this question. It has to do with the way sunlight is scattered by the molecules in the atmosphere. Blue light scatters more than red (Tyndall effect also known as Rayleigh scattering), so more blue light reaches our eye.

There is an excellent description at the website listed below (look at the cartoon and it will be pretty clear).

It is not a reflection from the ocean. And it isn't just water molecules that cause the effect.

Aloha

Answer 3

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 4

the blue colour of the sky is using Rayleigh scattering. As easy strikes for the time of the ambience, most of the longer wavelengths bypass at contemporary by using. Little of the crimson, orange and yellow easy is tormented by using the air. in spite of if, lots of the shorter wavelength easy is absorbed by using the gas molecules. The absorbed blue easy is then radiated in diverse guidelines. It gets scattered everywhere in the sky. Whichever direction you seem, a number of this scattered blue easy reaches you. on the grounds which you spot the blue easy from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

Answer 5

It does not reflect off the ocean. The sun's light is scattered by the atmosphere. Blues are scattered more than reds (because of their shorter wavelength). The longer the path through the atmosphere the more blue is scattered out of the direct path of the incoming sunlight and so in the evening the sun appears more red.

Answer 6

The colour of the sky is a result of diffuse sky radiation and the fact that air is actually a very transparent blue color[1]. On a sunny day the Earth sky usually looks as a blue gradient — dark in the zenith, light near the horizon (due to Rayleigh scattering). It turns orange and red during sunrise and sunset, and becomes black at night.
The color is also effected by such things as moisture, dust, and gases.

Answer 7

It's the particles in our atmosphere that do it. As the sun's rays come into our atmosphere, the light that bounces off of these particles reflect a blue light. The particles are of course too small to see, atoms really.

Answer 8

No, the ocean has almost nothing to do with it, it has to do with the wave length of the color blue, and the oxidation of certian elements in the air.

Answer 9

no i thought the ocean reflects off the sky- and something about the atoms in the atmosphere makes the sky blue.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question39.htm

Answer 10

I think the sky is blue because, God wanted it it to be like that or maybe it is because all of the rain is up there!!!