What Color would the sky be if...

Question

If there was no water on earth?

Answer 1

Black.

No water on earth probably means no atmosphere, either.

So the sky would be black, just like standing on the moon.

Answer 2

It is not water that colors the sky. If we instantaneously removed all the water from the Earth, the sky would remain more or less the same color it is now (only it wouldn't have any clouds).

However, without the water, the mummified remains of all the various plants and animals on Earth would no longer be able to keep any ecosystem going. Before very long, the Earth's natural processes would alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere and probably change its color somewhat. It might end up looking more like Mars, or like Venus, depending on just what happens to it and what chemicals end up in it. A small amount of water would be produced by oxidization of hydrocarbons, but my guess is there wouldn't be enough to sprout any dried plant seeds within a short enough time to rescue the Earth's ecology and stabilize an oxygen atmosphere.

Answer 3

It would be absent of any color.

The only reason we see blue skys, is because of the reflection of the earth in the moisture in the atmosphere.

Answer 4

first of all sky doesnt have any colour it is a transparent screen

the sky appears to be blue coz the 3 of 4 parts are water which is possible to see in space by those ratio, if there are no water then there would be only land which means no plants and any of the life forms, so there will be only sand and so the sky appears to be in brown colour

Answer 5

you do realise that the reason the sky is blue isnt becasue its a refelection of the water? its because the longer wave length light is able to go throught the atmosphere easier and this light reaches you eyes so no water wouldnt actaully make any difference unless you want to go into that the earth would be alot lighter so less gravity so less density so different wavelenghts of light would come to the earth in wich case the sky would look more of green yellow or organge unlikly to be red but hop this helps

Answer 6

Most likely the sky would be opaque. Without water there would be no life as we know it, so the original methane ammonia atmosphere would be unchanged. A lot like Venus, but cooler.

HTH

Charles

Answer 7

You're asking a hypothetical question.....'no water on earth'....meaning everything else is the same.

The physics of the sky would remain the same, so it would be blue, like it is now.

Answer 8

it would depend on what components made up the atmosphere.... mars has no water, yet you don't see black when you look out into the sky.... i think it's more pink/golden....

err.. well correction it has water, but it's mostly all in ice, so it really doesn't have much of an effect on the atmospheric coloring.

Answer 9

First you need to understand why the sky is blue - because it does not require water:

light from the sun is scattered by atoms and molecules in the atmosphere - mostly by the O2 and N2.

Light scattering by particles depends on the relative "sizes" of the photons and the particles.

In the case of visible light, molecules are much smaller than the wavelength of light, so blue light gets scattered much more than red light.

So as light from the sun enters the atmosphere, more blue photons get reflected (not absorbed) by molecules than red photons - but then the blue photons get reflected again and again until they reach us. So the blue light comes from all over, the red light comes almost straight from the sun.

This is also why the sun looks redder at sunrise and sunset - the light's path through the atmosphere is longer when the sun is on the horizon than when it is high in the sky.

Interaction of light with the atmosphere does all sorts of weird and wonderful things that physics can explain:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hba...



On Mars the sky isn;t blue - but that is because of very small dust particles of magnetite that have interesting reflective properties and make Mars' sky butterscotch.

On Venus the sky is yellowish and dark because the cloud cover is so thick and there's sulphur in the atmosphere.

If we simply didn;t have water - and no life - that the atmosphere would have a similar bulk composition to Mars and Venus - i.e. mostly CO2.

So the Rayleigh scattering that gives blue sky still applies and the sky would still be blue.

If dust got kicked up intot he atmosphere - this would have an effect, but it depends on what the dust is made of as to how it changes the color.