why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

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 2

Interesting question. It goes like this.

The wates is colourless. Sometimes, water is brown because of too much dirt. It's green slightly sometimes if there's lots of trees near it. It's blue most of the time because the sun's rays reflect on it.

Why is the sky blue? It's because blue light is more likely to be scattered twice or more over the greater distances, leaving the yellow, red and orange colours.

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.

Another main reason is that our planet is covered with 75% water. I've told why water is blue. That change results in the change in sky colour to blue.

That doesn't mean if water was green or violet, the sky would be violet. Blue, first of all, is more vibrant and reflects better than the other colours at day. At night, red and orange and more vibrant until it is replaced by a darker blue when there's no sun.

These are the main reasons why. If you go to mars, the sky will be red because the whole planet's surface is red. So, it affects their sky colour.

Hope this helps. :-)

Answer 3

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 4

From what I learned in school, its mostly because the ocean is blue and when the sun's ray's hit the water, most of it reflects back into the sky and the water in the atmosphere glows to create the blue color

Answer 5

Blue light is scattered so that the blue seems to be coming from all over. It looks red at sunrise and sunset because the blue light has to go through so much atmosphere that the blue light gets scattered away.

Answer 6

kelly l is right, but if you don't get other satisfactory answers to your question, search "why is the sky blue" under Yahoo! Answers to peruse countless duplicate questions' answers pertaining to the same subject.

Answer 7

Simple answer is, it is the suns rays reflecting off the atmosphere.

Answer 8

the man who knows the meaning of life is dead---youll know when ya go i suppose

Answer 9

so it can cry on you,or light refraction from the ocean