why is the sky blue?

Question

no one knows this answer, so i want to see if anyone could answer it :-P

Answer 1

oh my god...are you kidding me. This question has been asked a billion times and has been answered by trillions. No offense but please run a search on question before posting them. :-)

Any ways...coming to your question.
Light from the sun may look white but it is actually a combination of many different colors. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through the atmosphere. However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules in the atmosphere. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered in the sky. This obsorbed and scattered blue light is the reason we see sky as blue.

Answer 2

Everyone likes to label it as Rayleigh Scattering but still very few explain that term. The Sun emits pure white light. As the sun comes up or sets, the light has more air molecules to travel thru, giving a longer bend to the white light, the reds having a longer frequency, and due to the longer bend of the light from the amount of air, we see reds at sunrise and sunset. AS the Sun climbs higher, it goes thru less air to get to ours eyes. Hence the light is not refracted as much, less bend you might say, blues have a shorter wavelength, so we see blue. Notice on clear cloudless days, the sky is real blue in the middle around noon and appears whitish at the horizon. We are looking at light traveling away from us at the horizon so we see the white light as from the sun. On cloudy or foggy days, less blue because the white light is being filtered by the greyness of the clouds or fog.

Answer 3

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.

As you look closer to the horizon, the sky appears much paler in color. To reach you, the scattered blue light must pass through more air. Some of it gets scattered away again in other directions. Less blue light reaches your eyes. The color of the sky near the horizon appears paler or white.

Answer 4

The sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering. Long wavelengths (red, yellow, orange) pass through the air with little affect. The short wavelength (blue) gets absorbed and scatters around the daytime sky. So when you look up, blue reaches you and all around you can see the blue sky.

Answer 5

Because of the polarization caused by the gases where it is made of. Why the sea is darker blue? because the of the same reason as I gave you with the sky however the liquids where the sea is made of is more compressed than the gases which makes up the sky. Then if the composition of our sky is made of different gases than what we normally have, it might be of different color.

These are all true provided that the earth's distance remains the same as it is now from the light source (sun).

Answer 6

It seems like the topic is pretty well covered...yet the question reminds me of the answer of Judge harry on Night court...

The prisoner asked him "why is the sky blue?" his reply was " because if it was green we would not know when to stop mowing the lawn"

I just had to throw that one in..: )

Answer 7

The reason why the sky is blue i sbecase god made it that way

Answer 8

the sky is blue because blue wavelengths of light are reflected by oxygen atoms

Answer 9

You know what? It's a mystery!

Now come back when you get a more original question.

Answer 10

It looked red at sundown yesterday