Why is the sky 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. The blue color of the sky is caused by the scattering of sunlight off the molecules of the atmosphere. This scattering, called Rayleigh scattering, is more effective at short wavelengths (the blue end of the visible spectrum). Therefore the light scattered down to the earth at a large angle with respect to the direction of the sun's light is predominantly in the blue end of the spectrum.


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 2

The atmosphere around the Earth is largely made up of two colorless gases: oxygen and nitrogen. Red and blue light reacts very different from each other to oxygen. Because the wavelength of blue light is roughly the size of an atom of oxygen, blue light interacts with the oxygen and is scattered by it, while red light, with its longer wavelength, goes right pass the oxygen atoms. If the Earth had no atmosphere, the sun’s light would travel directly from the Sun in a straight line towards our eyes and we would see the Sun as a very bright star in sea of blackness. But because the Sun’s blue light is scattered by the oxygen in the atmosphere, blue light from the Sun enters our eyes from all sorts of different angles and we see the entire sky as blue. The atmosphere scatters violet light even more effectively, but our eyes are more sensitive to blue. Wherever we look towards the sky, some light is bouncing off an oxygen atom and entering our eyes, making the sky appear to be blue.

Answer 3

the simplest answer is : the blue wave lenght of light coming from the sun reflects the air molecules and gets back like a v shape so it seems blue to us.basically theres no sky just the blue colour

Answer 4

Because the sun is WHITE,
and white light carries the 7 colors of the rainbow....
When the light shines down on us, something happens with the particles, and then the color that becomes visible to us is blue.
The sky also looks pink and other colors at different times of the day
p.s=It's not because of the reflection of the ocean/water

Answer 5

Only the blue wavelength of light of the visible light spectrum is scattered by molecules in the atmosphere.

Answer 6

Rayleigh scattering

Answer 7

All colors have waves that are diffused by oxygen and nitrogen. Since blue has the shortest wavelength, its diffused up to 10 times more. 10 pts. please??

Answer 8

because it is a reflection off of the ocean.the sun shines down and reflects it back.it