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2006-12-18 15:49:19 · 12 answers · asked by ryan m 1 in Science & Mathematics Earth Sciences & Geology

12 answers

Sky is blue because of the reflection of the ocean. (ocean is blue, isn`t it?)

2006-12-18 19:33:46 · answer #1 · answered by Papilio paris 5 · 0 1

The sun's rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, where the light is scattered by nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air. The blue wavelength of this light is affected more than the red and green wavelengths, causing the surrounding air to appear blue. At sunset, the sun's light passes farther through the atmosphere, deflecting and decreasing the blue in the air. Scattering by dust particles and pollution in the air causes the sunset to appear red.

2006-12-18 23:57:11 · answer #2 · answered by pinkcallalillie3 3 · 0 0

The sky is blue partly because air scatters short-wavelength light in preference to longer wavelengths. Combined, these effects scatter (bend away in all directions) some short, blue light waves while allowing almost all longer, red light waves to pass straight through. When we look toward a part of the sky not near the sun, the blue color we see is blue light waves scattered down toward us from the white sunlight passing through the air overhead. Near sunrise and sunset, most of the light we see comes in nearly tangent to the Earth's surface, so that 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.

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.

Why is the sky blue instead of violet?
Because of the strong wavelength dependence (inverse fourth power) of light scattering according to Raleigh's Law, one would expect that the sky would appear more violet than blue, the former having a shorter wavelength than the latter. There is a simple physiological explanation for this apparent conundrum. Simply put, the human eye cannot detect violet light in presence of light with longer wavelengths. There is a reason for this. It turns out that the human eye's high resolution color-detection system is made of proteins and chromophores (which together make up photoreceptor cells or "Cone" structures in the eye's fovea) that are sensitive to different wavelengths in the visible spectrum (400 nm–700 nm). In fact, there are three major protein-chromophore sensors that have peak sensitivities to yellowish-green (564 nm), bluish-green (534 nm), and blue-violet (420 nm) light. The brain uses the different responses of these chromophores to interpret the spectrum of the light that reaches the retina.

When one experimentally plots the sensitivity curves for the three color sensors (identified here as long (L), middle (M), and short (S) wavelength), three roughly "bell-curve" distributions are seen to overlap one another and cover the visible spectrum. We depend on this overlap for color sensing to detect the entire spectrum of visible light. For example, monochromatic violet light at 400 nm mostly stimulates the S receptors, but also slightly stimulates the L and M receptors, with the L receptor having the stronger response. This combination of stimuli is interpreted by the brain as violet. Monochromatic blue light, on the other hand, stimulates the M receptor more than the L receptor. Skylight is not monochromatic; it contains a mixture of light covering much of the spectrum. The combination of strong violet light with weaker blue and even weaker green and yellow strongly stimulates the S receptor, and stimulates the M receptor more than the L receptor. As a result, this mixture of wavelengths is perceived by the brain as blue rather than violet.

You could get more information from the link below...

2006-12-19 04:20:40 · answer #3 · answered by catzpaw 6 · 0 0

light from the sun in made up of seven components of different wave lenght. these are red,orange,yellow,green,blue,indigo and violet. when entering the atmosphere they are faced with some resistance. this causes blue light scatter in all directions forming a blue background in the sky. this light is scattered by air molecules where ever they strech.

2006-12-19 03:08:51 · answer #4 · answered by nsakamaneneulelya 2 · 0 0

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

2006-12-18 23:53:29 · answer #5 · answered by C.C. 2 · 0 0

Its because the sun light hits our atmospheree, and reflects down to us. That is why at night the sky is black because no sun light, and in space is black because no atmospher. >.<

2006-12-18 23:53:06 · answer #6 · answered by cc ccddcdcdcdcccdcdc 2 · 1 0

reflection of thelight bouncing off the ocean

2006-12-18 23:52:03 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

it is not really blue.
it has got to do with the reflection of light

2006-12-22 15:11:29 · answer #8 · answered by Melissa 2 · 0 0

Because thats how God wanted it

2006-12-18 23:58:19 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

because it is sad how many times will this come up

2006-12-19 02:02:01 · answer #10 · answered by zero d 2 · 0 0

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