why is the sky blue?

Question

and don't say because it reflects he color of the ocean

Answer 1

The sunlit sky appears blue because air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer wavelengths. Since blue light is at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, it is more strongly scattered in the atmosphere than long wavelength red light. The result is that the human eye perceives blue when looking toward parts of the sky other than the sun.[1] Near sunrise and sunset, most of the light we see comes in nearly tangent to the Earth's surface, so that the light's path through the atmosphere is so long that much of the blue and even yellow light is scattered out, leaving the sun rays and the clouds it illuminates red.

Scattering and absorption are major causes of the attenuation of radiation by the atmosphere. Scattering varies as a function of the ratio of the particle diameter to the wavelength of the radiation. When this ratio is less than about one-tenth, Rayleigh scattering occurs in which the scattering coefficient varies inversely as the fourth power of the wavelength. At larger values of the ratio of particle diameter to wavelength, the scattering varies in a complex fashion described, for spherical particles, by the Mie theory; at a ratio of the order of 10, the laws of geometric optics begin to apply.

Some of the false beliefs of why the sky is blue are that the sky reflects off the ocean and that the light scatters off dust in the air. These two theories cannot be true, as the sky over the middle of a desert or jungle has the same hue as the sky over the middle of an ocean.

Answer 2

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 3

The composition of the air is mostly nitrogen and this mainly scatters most of the light in the blue part of the spectrum. If the atmosphere was composed of different gases, our sky would be a different colour. The other colours are not scattered but transmitted through the atmosphere.

Answer 4

It is due to Rayleigh scattering. Most of the longer light wavelengths (red, yellow, orange) pass straight through the Earth's atmosphere. The longer blue wavelengths are scattered more by the atmosphere. Therefore we perceive the sky as blue.

Answer 5

Why not? That's a source of blue. The other is the blue is particularly scattered by air molecules, while red and other colors tend to go straight through.

Answer 6

no because it is the color your eyes perceive it as because of the reflection of water molecules in the air.

Answer 7

Rayleigh scattering

Answer 8

it's how the sun light hits the atmosphere and it's the color that it shows up in the light spectrum, in a nutshell

Answer 9

I feel the rampage approaching.

6,121 hits

http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result;_ylt=AteCjwXrCR4n9YUD_moDJUADxgt.;_ylv=3?p=why+is+the+sky+blue

Answer 10

Because green was taken.