Why is the sky any colour at all?

Question

Please could somebody explain that. I don't want to know why it's blue, that's to do with wavelength. And what is light scattering?

I said I don't want to know why the sky is blue!!!

I just want to know why the sky is any colour at all. Why isn't it see-through?

Answer 1

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.
On Earth, the sun appears yellow. If you were out in space, or on the moon, the sun would look white. In space, there is no atmosphere to scatter the sun's light. On Earth, some of the shorter wavelength light (the blues and violets) are removed from the direct rays of the sun by scattering. The remaining colors together appear yellow.

As the sun begins to set, the light must travel farther through the atmosphere before it gets to you. More of the light is reflected and scattered. As less reaches you directly, the sun appears less bright. The color of the sun itself appears to change, first to orange and then to red. This is because even more of the short wavelength blues and greens are now scattered. Only the longer wavelengths are left in the direct beam that reaches your eyes.

Answer 2

There is no "blue object" above the earth in any normal sense, so it is hard to say what object the sky is. The sky is thus sometimes defined as the denser gaseous zone of a planet's atmosphere. At night the sky has the appearance of a black surface or region scattered with stars. But if we then say that the sky is the entire visible universe, it would not be the same thing we see during the day. Nobody really know's why, scientist's just come up with theory's

Answer 3

The molecules which make up 99% of the earth's atmosphere do not absorb any wavelengths of visible light. Molecules in the air are not like indigo molecules which absorb red light and give blue cloth its color. Molecules in the air are not pigments. However, molecules in the air do scatter blue light more strongly than red light. This means that white sunlight has its blue components scattered to the side while its red components keep traveling straight. White sunlight bathes the atmosphere of the earth. The sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue to your eyes more than they scatter red.

Answer 4

The nighttime sky is in fact NOT black. Is is a very dark midnight blue. The sky is a different color at night because at night the sun is on the other side of the earth. The earth is blocking sunlight from reaching the sky that you are seeing, and so it is dark. Think of a piece of paper with a flashlight behind it....and the the flashlight moves. (That's fairly inaccurate, but you understand what I'm saying, right?"

Answer 5

Dust in the air is small enough for the red and yellow light to pass through pretty much unhindered, but the shorter wavelengths of blue light, cause the dust to scatter it. if the dust was bigger, the colour would change. If there was no dust to scatter (change the direction) the light, there would be no colour

Answer 6

the mine shaft thing isn't true, i spent a while involved in a research project at uni with a friend of mine. You cant see the stars from a mine shaft or well etc. I'm told the sky is blue because of the frequency at which light is refracted by the atmosphere. It refracts at the blue part of the spectrum giving the sky it's blue colour.

Answer 7

As spud just above says, the sky isn't coloured at all, it's transparent. It only looks blue when the sun is visible, because you see the blue light from the sun everywhere you look.

At night, when the sun isn't around, it looks perfectly transparent, doesn't it? Well, assuming it's a clear night.

It's like asking "Why is a white wall blue when you shine a blue light on it?" It's not blue, it's white, but it *looks* blue because you're shining a blue light on it.

Answer 8

if you go down a deep mineshaft in pure daylight and look up you'll see the stars, its basically as the light hits various dust particles it splits into a spectrum and blue bending least hits your eyes. i think anyway im probably wrong though the mineshaft thing is right

Answer 9

it isn't, the "sky" is transparent it just looks blue because that is the first color of the spectrum the human eye detects

Answer 10

The sky fluoreses .That is why light is more distributed that way.