does anyone know how and why the sky is blue?

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. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

Answer 2

The sky is blue due to a light scattering phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering. Very small particles scatter different wavelengths, that is colors, with different efficiency. The scattering goes as one over the wavelength to the fourth power. For smaller wavelengths the scattering will be greater. Blue is a short wavelength color and is scattered more efficiently than the longer red wavelengths. That is why the sky appears blue. Look up Rayleigh Scattering on the web for a more complete explanation.

Answer 3

This is one of the clearest explanations I could find out there:

"The sky is filled with air. Air is a mixture of tiny gas molecules and small bits of solid stuff, like dust.

As sunlight goes through the air, it bumps into the molecules and dust. When light hits a gas molecule, it may bounce off in a different direction. Some colors of light, like red and orange, pass straight through the air. But most of the blue light bounces off in all directions. In this way, the blue light gets scattered all around the sky.

When you look up, some of this blue light reaches your eyes from all over the sky. Since you see blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue."

You can find more information from the source: http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html

Answer 4

The atmosphere scatters the light from the sun. The sun's light is made up of many wavelengths and for some reason the blue light is scattered more than the others and the other colors are absorbed more. Not a real technical answer but basically that's how.

Answer 5

its got to do with the wavelenghts of visible light absorbed by the gasses in the atmosphere. white light has 'all the colours of the rainbow' in it. the earths atmosphere absorbs a large proportion of the different colours, however, an excess of blue is not absorbed, therefore we see the sky as blue.

Answer 6

I think its probably due to the fact that oxygen is colored blue. Against the blackness of space one can see the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen in tanks is a liquid which is shaded a similar blue like the sky but a little more darker.

Answer 7

It has something the way Earths atmosphere separates the colors of the light spectrum. And blue is the only color that gets through.

Answer 8

The refraction of light by the dust particles in the atmosphere causes us to see the blue light as it has the slowest speed.

Answer 9

it is due to the reflection of sunlight from the sea / ocean.
the reflected light falls on the ozone layer and we see blue co lour

And it is the right answer

Answer 10

scattering of insolation by nitrogen fixation weakens the light from white to blue.