My 4 year old asked dad why is the sky blue? ... I said because it is. Do you know why?

Answer 1

To explain it to a 4 yr old... get a prism and show him/her how sunlight is really many colors.. and that the blue colors are on the bottom (this is when you put the apex of the prism up and the light curves down to spread out).. while the red are on top...

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

Because the light is going past the earth in space.. and the earth's air is somewhat like a prism.. we get the sunlight split up and only the Blue gets sent to us (the Violet and Indigo are absorbed by the atmosphere)...

We get to see the reds in the evening.

Answer 2

The sky looks blue because of the way that different colors of light interact with the atmosphere. Generally, longer wavelengths, such as red and yellow pass through the atmosphere without interference. Shorter wavelengths, such as blue are more prone to being scattered in the atmosphere. The light that comes from the sky that is not coming directly from the direction of the sun is this scattered light. That is why the sky is blue.

Answer 3

This sounds like a trip to a local bookstore for a kid's science picture book or to the Library!

However the short answer is this, Light difraction or scattering.

Light from the sun is basically bright yellow/whitish - however when it's in the atmosphere it gets knocked around and scattered.

Because most of the blue rays from the sun get absorbed , the rest of the energy light is left to "bounce" around and it's what we see as "blue". This is called Rayleigh scattering..

During a cloudy day, water vapor scatters light of all wavelengths and absorbes various types of light.
When you look at the horizon the atmosphere is "thicker" towards the horizon so more scattering occurs and the sun appears "redish".

Polution and other factors can also affect the color of the sky as well.

Answer 4

The sky appears blue during the day because of the presence of atmosphere. Sunlight is filtered by the atmosphere to let only harmless rays through. Some rays are caught up in atmosphere, while some others are deflected. The rays caught up cluster to form blueish colours. Of course in the night there is no sunrays, so the sky appears black with stars. That is the way all skies are in outer space.
This is why water appears blue in the day and dark in the night too. Water reflects the blue sky in the day and the dark at night.

Answer 5

Rayleigh scattering selectively scatters high frequencies more than low frequencies. Since blue light is higher frequency than red, the sky overhead looks blue because you are seeing blue light scattered from the air molecules. This is also why sunsets look red. You are seeing the light left over after the blue is scattered out.

Answer 6

Light is made up of 3 colours:
1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue
When it is day the blue colour gets diffused most. For that reason sky looks blue.

Answer 7

I learned this in college but forget a great deal of it. It has to due with differening wavelengths of light being bend to differring degrees by the earth's atmosphere. Think of the sky as a lens (like on eyeglasses) that bends the light that comes in. Somehow, more blue light makes it to us here on the ground than other colors.

Like I said, I forget a lot of the details. But I hope this helps.

Answer 8

To add to the previous answer. The blue part of the white light from the sun scatters more than the green and red parts. It might be helpfull to show your 4 year old the "rainbow" of colors.

Answer 9

Hi. A good answer is that the blue light gets spread around by the air, and that the blue gets spread out first. Then show her a sunset and explain that the blue is all gone until tomorrow.

Answer 10

To explain this to a 4 year old, I believe ♥Tom♥ nailed this one. Beautiful explanation, true and a child that young can understand it.