why the sky is blue?

Question

not red or yellow?

Answer 1

Here is something interesting to think about: When you look at the sky at night, it is black, with the stars and the moon forming points of light on that black background. So why is it that, during the day, the sky does not remain black with the sun acting as another point of light? Why does the daytime sky turn a bright blue and the stars disappear?

The first thing to recognize is that the sun is an extremely bright source of light -- much brighter than the moon. The second thing to recognize is that the atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere have an effect on the sunlight that passes through them.

There is a physical phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering that causes light to scatter when it passes through particles that have a diameter one-tenth that of the wavelength (color) of the light. Sunlight is made up of all different colors of light, but because of the elements in the atmosphere the color blue is scattered much more efficiently than the other colors.

So when you look at the sky on a clear day, you can see the sun as a bright disk. The blueness you see everywhere else is all of the atoms in the atmosphere scattering blue light toward you. (Because red light, yellow light, green light and the other colors aren't scattered nearly as well, you see the sky as blue.)

Answer 2

During the middle of the day, The sun is directly over us, sending light energy into the air particles of our atmosphere. Each of those little air particles has a shell of electrons surrounding it that start to vibrate, or wave. The speed, or frequency, at which they vibrate causes a wave to be sent through what is called the "electromagnetic spectrum." Basically what that means is, each of those little particles is waving at us a certain number of times per second.

Our eyes have little receptors in the retina that can pick up those waves by accepting the energy they give off. Then those receptors send a message to our brain that interprets how fast the particles are waving at us. If they wave really fast, we see blue... a little slower.. we see green. The slowest will be red.

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, you'll notice the sky becomes all manner of reds and oranges. The reason for this is that the sun's energy hits those air particles at an angle, rather than head-on. So there's less energy, and the electrons in the particles don't wave as fast. So our eyes see that they wave slower, and our brain interprets that as red.

Hope this helps.

Craig

Answer 3

Well, sometimes it is red or a tint of red. This is because the sun casts light on the water molecules in the clouds, and whatever dust or debris are in the clouds, that reflects a color out. So a blue sky is a clean sky. A red sky or even a red moon, means that there is pollution.

Answer 4

A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colors because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

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 5

For two reasons, since the water in the ocean is blue where it is reflected to give the sky the color it has and secondly, because several levels in the atmosphere compressed together give out a basic color of light blue, but of course due to pollution, over time the sky now looks a heavier and darker blue than before.

Answer 6

A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

Answer 7

It has to do with the wave length of blue light. The atmosphere of the earth disperses blue light so the entire sky looks blue. The other colors from the sun come straight through the atmosphere.

Answer 8

ill give you the simple answer. basically it is the reflection of specific gases off the different layers of the atmosphere. when it does "turn" red or what have you its the suns rays creating the colors through the gases. the gases become sort of a prism and the colors you see are then a result. It also has to do with the angle of reflection which is why it only occurs early in the morning or just before sunset.

Answer 9

Hmmm...
It's a good question.....
It's known that sunlight consists of seven colours ,but when it enters the earth's atmosphere,it is dispersed...
Now...a small experiment....
Take a prism and pass white light through it.....
obviously...it splits into seven colours..but on closer observation ,we can see that blue colour is dispersed to greater extant.i.e.blue band is much wide
This is because shorter wavelengths(blue.)are dispersed more....
now back to ur question....
air molecules act as tiny prisms and they disperse shorter wavelength,blue colour, and transmits the remaining colours...
hence the blue sky.....not red or yellow.

Answer 10

Were you dropped as an infant?

That's the only explanation i can think of for people that continually ask this question.