violet being the color with least wavelength why does sky appears in a blue color?

Question

The reason given for sky's bluish color is that it has very less wavelength.But Violet has very less wavelength compared to blue .Then why does the sky does not appear in a violet color but in a blue color?

Answer 1

The sky actually IS violet if you were to measure the spectrum of the light. As you mentioned, lower wavelengths are affected more by Raleigh Scattering (~ 1/wavelength^4), so violet would be scattered even more than blue light. The human eye has peak sensetivity at 540nm, which is a nice shade of green. Our eyes are more sensetive to the blue in the atmosphere than the violet, so thats what we see.

Answer 2

The accurate answer is yes but practically you probably wouldn't notice. Our Sun is a yellow star with a slight green tinge to the color. However if you look at the Sun when it is high in the sky it looks white. Try it. Staring at the Sun is harmful but a quick glance is okay. The reason we see the Sun as white is our eyes adapt to the ambient light. You can see this with light bulbs. They are orange and yet at night they sort of look white and colors in the room are more or less the same as daylight colors. If you take a photo at night without flash then you will be surprised at how red the scene really is. So suppose we were on an Earth-like planet orbiting another star. That star, the local sun, would automatically appear white to us. Similarly the color of any object will appear to be the same as it did on Earth. The color of the sky is caused by Rayleigh scattering of daylight. Consequently it will still appear blue whether the sun is a dim red star, a yellow star or a bright blue star. There will be some changes. First our eyes do not adapt perfectly so we would notice a slight blue tinge to the sunlight of a blue star. You see this with light bulbs. They appear slightly red and colors are shifted slightly to the red. Secondly there is a phenomenon called metamerism. Some objects change color when the illuminant changes. Normally it is only a little but sometimes there is a noticeable color shift. That is why people take clothing out of a shore to check it in daylight. Colors that match indoors sometimes look different outdoors. The sky is different because the color is caused by scattering rather than reflection. Under a blue sun, the sky would be brighter and will contain a larger violet component. The overhead sky would seem to be lighter than Earth's and would have just a hint of purple. The horizon sky, which on Earth tends towards cyan, would be a purer blue. Under a red star we would get the opposite effect. The sky would be darker and overhead there would be a suggestion of green. The horizon sky would be distinctly cyan in color. Nevertheless, the perceived changes in color would be small and it is fair to say that at first glance everything would look the same as it does on our Earth near our Sun. You can look at our Sun without harm although you get after images and staring at it is very bad. Red stars are relatively dim so an Earth-like planet would need to be close. This means that a red sun would be large and dim and you could look at it without any harm. A blue star on the other hand is exceptionally bright so from an Earth-like planet it would be a searingly bright small point. Looking at that, even for an instant, would be painful if not blinding. So it might be that on a planet orbiting a blue star, sun glasses would be required at all times. That, of course, would affect your color vision.

Answer 3

Because the sun's light peaks at yellow. There's more blue than violet in sunlight to start with. And our vision (having evolved in sunlight) is most sensitive to yellow light, so we see the sky as blue. That said, if you look at a clear sky in a direction exactly perpendicular to the sun, it does look a bit indigo.

Answer 4

Because violet is spectrally pure color.

The sky doesn't appear in blue either.
Blue color of sky is not actually spectrally pure blue.
Blue color of sky is light blue.

Answer 5

Blue is a pleasant Heavenly color. Would you have prefered to have created a yelow sky of a brown sky? or a cimetary color like violet?All we know is that the sky is flourescent and it apppears that the atmospheres is blue.However the air is really colorless.

Answer 6

There is significantly less violet than blue in sunlight.

Answer 7

when light enters the earth's atmosphere, light gets scattered. scattering of light is inversely proportional to inverse of fourth power of wavelength according to rayleigh's law of scattering. when sun is on the zenith, light has to travel minimum distance of the atmosphere, thus blue.which has less wavelength gets scattered. at horizons light as to cover maximum distance hence the the red light, which has maximum wavelength, gets scattered.Due to this sun appears red during sunrise and sunset.

Answer 8

When the rays pass in our atmosphere you see blue because blue has the shortest wave length.

Answer 9

Because God is a genuis.