why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

Why is the sky blue?

Sunlight is made up of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The gas molecules in the atmosphere interact with the sunlight before the light reaches our eyes.
The gas molecules in the atmosphere scatter the higher-energy (high frequency) blue portion of the sunlight more than they scatter the lower-energy red portion of the sunlight (this is called Rayleigh scattering, named for the physicist Lord John Rayleigh). The Sun appears reddish-yellow and the sky surrounding the Sun is colored by the scattered blue waves.

When the Sun is lower in the horizon (near sunrise or sunset), the sunlight must travel through a greater thickness of atmosphere than it does when it is overhead, and even more light is scattered (not just blue, but also green, yellow, and orange) before the light reaches your eyes. This makes the sun look much redder.

Answer 2

while most people will say something along the lines of "the ocean is blue, and the light reflects off of it" while this is true, it is not why the SKY is blue, just the ocean. what actuall happens is that blue is the darkest of colors from the rainbow, and seeing how light can be broken down to different waves of light, when combined makes white, all colors, are reflected while blue is not.
this is because of the angle of lighting coming in. at sunrise, red is prodominant due to the angle, same as mid-day it is blue. same effects act for the sunset, which is just the same as sunrise, except for the position, and is at a lightly different angle, which angain is what determines the color of the sky.

you may think that that would make all the suns rays blue, but seeing how blue scatters more than any other kind of light, it is also seen with red, green, and other colors. this gives the correct view of light.
i have a few diagrams you may want to see for furthur information.

http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/bigtenimages/prism1.gif

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter19/graphics/rayleigh.free.gif

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/01-intro-01.jpg

i hope all the information i have provided, was well suited for what the question that was asked.

Answer 3

The sky is blue due to a phenomenon called the Tyndall Effect.

This explains that the reflection of sunlight off suspended particles [of dust] in the atmosphere (the atmosphere is a colloid) filters most colours of the spectrum and paermits mainly blue light to reach the ground. The angle of the sun is important; during the day mainly blue light is reflected but as the angle of the sun shallows (in the evening) the wavelengths towards the red end of the spectrum are favoured and hence we have coloured sunsets.

Answer 4

oooo I learnt about that when i was younger. I had a book and it was called why is the sky blue. It was about this donkey who was old and wise and this very young rabbit who wanted to learn.
The rabbit asked why the sky was blue but everytime the donkey went to answer it the rabbit had got bored and ran off.
They ended up teaching each other things though. The rabbit learnt why the sky was blue and to not be so distracted and the donkey learnt to play and be happy.
It was a touching story!

Answer 5

blue has a higher frequency than most of the other visible colors and because of this it has a greater refraction (bend). so light coming from an angle bends into the visible spectrum accept blue and violet have the greateest change in angle so we see the blue when we are at the right angle and somone who is watching the sun set sees orange and red which have the least refractance.

Answer 6

It's not actually blue. It's the way the light reflects through the gases in the atmosphere. That's why it can be other colors. W/o the light everything is black or the absence of light whichever way you want to look at it.

Answer 7

From what I know, it's because the sunlights lit up the dark sky so much it looks blue.

Answer 8

Just look this up in the resolved questions. It's been asked a million times

Answer 9

because the color blue has a short wave length than the other colors.

Answer 10

It reflects the seas oceans etc.