Can anyone tell me , Why , when you look at a clear sky, it looks blue, what is it that we are looking at.?

Question

what creates the blue vision, why is it not another colour.

Answer 1

Light coming from the sun is what's called "white light" White light contains all the colors of the rainbow. When it enters Earth's atmosphere this light is separated into its individual colors by chemical elements in the atmosphere and scattered across the sky. Nitrogen is the most abundant element in our atmosphere, and that element scatters the color blue across our sky more than the other colors. In space, there is no atmosphere to separate colors from the white light and space looks black.

Answer 2

Agree with Rayleigh scattering, but it has nothing to do with excitation and re-radiation from gas molecules, either oxygen or nitrogen. The scattering phenomenon is due to atmospheric particles and is strongly wavelength dependant, the shorter (blue) wavelengths being scattered most, the longer (red) wavelengths are deviated less.
When you look towards the sun near sunset the sky appears red for the same reason, you are seeing the long (red) wavelengths which are little deviated, the blue light is deviated out of you line of sight.

Get a large glass container and fill it with water, it will probably already have dust particles in it. Shine a bright flashlight beam through the water and look towards the flashlight - the beam through the water should look a little redder. Now look from the side and you should see the beam going through the water looks a little bluer.

Answer 3

Light gets separated into different colours as it passes through the atmosphere. The blue colour is the colour that is reflected the most in the atmosphere.

Answer 4

The blue is a result of Rayleigh scattering.

Sunlight is composed of all visible colors (as well as many invisible forms of light). Long wavelength light (red, orange, yellow...) passes through the air without much trouble, but blue light is just the right frequency to be absorbed by oxygen molecules in the atmosphere. It causes the oxygen atoms' electrons to jump around a bit, then it gets re-emitted in a random direction. Since there's oxygen all around us, there's blue light being randomly emitted from excited oxygen molecules in any direction you look. The blue light is effectively scattered. Hence, a blue sky.

It's not another color because other colors don't excite oxygen molecules or any other gases in the atmosphere. The amount of energy they carry doesn't correspond to the gaps in any electron energy levels. If our atmosphere were made of another gas - a gas that was excited predominantly by, say, red light - then our sky would be red rather than blue.

Answer 5

actualy the blue color is from secondary scater emision, of a high energy stimulating primary flouresing radiation. in effect uv, x-ray and gamma from the sun is converted to the blue spectrum of light in the atmosphere. so that when the upper atmospheric molecules are bombarded by high energy uv and gamma exciting them to give of a resonant blue light wave. which then biases out the the light of the stars, by a higher magnitude of saturation. and since the night side of earth is not being bombarded with these high energy rays. there is no blue color to interfere with stellar observations.

if you bombard elements with high energy waves, each element and it's molecular form will resonate with their primary fundemental natural frequency wave. and is used in floursocphy for chemicial analysis of substances. so that you can even tell the difference between O3 ozone, and O2 oxygen by their associated emitted wave lengths. and the blue wavelength of excited N2 nitrogen, will be different wave length than the blue of O3 ozone. in a process that is simular to a blue nitrogen laser. except the earths atmosphere is not columated to produce a laser beam.

Answer 6

Rayleigh scattering of light. Happens that blue light has a small wavelength and is scattered by air molecules.

Answer 7

The earth's atmosphere is 80 % Nitrogen, 20% oxygen for all practical purposes.

Nitrogen is colorless - because it does not absorb any light in the visible spectrum.

Oxygen is blue in color; it absorbs some of the visible spectrum and this is why you see the blue color.

The reason oxygen absorbs in the visible spectrum is governed by its electronic structure - and well beyond the space here for the answer.

Answer 8

the sky is blue because of the refraction, or scattering of light. much like if you see a glacier. it has pockets of intense blue in it. same phenomena.

Answer 9

It is the atmosphere, the same colour is seen from the spaceshuttle looking down as you see looking up.

Answer 10

It's a optical translusion... As the sun's light curves in-to the atmosphere it reflects - some of the ocean color back..Beings the Earth is mostly surrounded by salt water...

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