Why is the sky blue? I need to know?

Answer 1

Jeez no one has it right so I'll answer. No it is not a reflection of the ocean. The blue comes from a refraction effect called Rayleigh Scattering. Basically the components of our atmosphere refracts out most of the red light when the sun is at higher angles, ie during the day, leaving us mainly blue light. At dawn and dusk, we're at lower angles to the sun, and most of the blue light is refracted below the horizon, leaving us with the redder colors you see during those times of day.

Answer 2

The sky is blue due to an atmosphetic effect called Rayleigh scattering - certainly not because its reflecting the ocean which people sometimes say! Rayleigh scattering involves the scattering of light by molecules smaller than the wavelength of light. It has a smaller effect on colours with longer wavelengths and that is why the sky is blue - and also in fact why the sun is yellow - if you added up all the blue tint in the sky and focused it in the area of sun you would get its actual colour of bright white, which is what you’d see in space.

Physicists used to say that Rayleigh diffraction was responsible for the reddish tint in sunrise and sunset because the light had to travel through more atmosphere to reach us however this is currently disputed and there is another optical theorem at work called 'Lorenz-Mie theory'.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question39.htm
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/physics/why_is_sky_blue.html

Kind regards.

Answer 3

white light is really all the colors of the raindow. the oxagen in the atmosphere couses the color blue to shatter across the sky more than the others when white light passes through it. water is acually clear, it just appres blue from the refection of the sky. it works how we see color. one or more color stands out and the others aborb into the object. black is the absense of all color. im not a science girl, i just been reveiwed by this a million times!

Answer 4

actually, the sky is blue, because of the wavelengths, the blue wavelengths are scattered more strongly than the red wavelengths in the sky.

Answer 5

its not the sky is actually black but its the ultraviolet rays from the sun reacting with chemicals in the atmosphere making the sky appear blue

Answer 6

The atmosphere absorbs and scatters sunlight. The wavelength of light that is scattered the most and absorbed the least happens to be in the blue spectrum of visible light.

Answer 7

Hi. You joined today and need to know? OK. The blue light has a shorter wavelength and is scattered more easily than red.

Answer 8

well it's cuz of wavelengths. our eyes can c blue(shortest wavelength) best. people usually think that it's reflecting off the ocean but actually...the ocean reflects off the sky. when u scoop up water..it's not blue..lol..it's clear. so look up the electromagnetic spectrum if u wanna know more.

Answer 9

Because it reflects the ocean. And the ocean is blue because it reflects the sky!

Answer 10

Refracted light. Way to long to explain here. Google or Wikipedia it.