Why is the?

Question

Why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

You could try looking at the other answers to this question which is asked at least three times a day. The sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering.

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

it's not it just appears blue because of the way light reflects of particles in the atmosphere....footnote...water appears blue because of the reflection from the sky....i'm sure someone out there can put this more scientifically, but i am low on the smart pole

Answer 4

i would have figured it's the oxygen that makes the sky look blue..because when you are in space its black, and as you go through our atmosphere, it starts to look blue. but that's just a guess I have no idea why it's blue

Answer 5

Thats the most original question I've seen in the past 5 minutes. NOT!!!!!!!!

Answer 6

You'd think I'd be one person who would know the answer to this question.