Why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

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 2

This is the third time this month that I know of that someone has asked this same question and yet every single one of the poeple who answered it before me (there were 4 answers when I started writing this) is way off and completely wrong. I am going to repost my answer from the previous question.

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 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 sky is blue because of the sun reflecting off of the water on the earth. That makes the sky blue because the earth is mostly water.

Answer 5

Light is refracted in the atmosphere...during the day it is bent in a way which results in a blue color because of the angle of the sun. At sunrise or sunset...the rays from the sun come at a different angle and are bent differently which results in reds, greens, oranges, etc.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LIGHT REFLECTION OFF OF THE WATER! That is just a stupid notion.

Answer 6

sky appears blue from sunlight in upper atmospere overlapping the 'night sky' darkness of space. sort of like when u mix colours together in light spectrum - you know blue and yellow make green etc

also different shades of blue come from atmospheric changes in different places around world plus angle of sun to where on earth and season

human eyes are good at picking up these lightwaves just like some insects can see ultraviolet on flowers etc.

Answer 7

THE SKY IS BLUE ON THE EARTH BECAUSE OF THE OXYGEN CONTENT IN THE AIR

Answer 8

because the atmosphere reflects the sun's rays

Answer 9

C-Dubs is right... its because of scattering. it is not because of the waters reflection- thats stupid.

Answer 10

because of the water in the ocean because of the ocean.