Why is the sky blue ?

Question

serious answers please my kids are asking and my hubby says when you look through this amount of atmosphere it will look blue ? That compressed oxygen is blue

Answer 1

Light travels in waves.

Different wavelengths of light produce different colors.

Different wavelengths of light reflect differently.

The gases in our atmosphere reflect light and cause the different wavelengths to scatter (or not scatter) in different patterns.

The blue wavelengths spread out and reach our eyes better than the other wavelengths.

tl:dr; There are different colors of light. Our atmosphere interacts with the light. Blue light comes through more prominently.

Answer 2

i think its the sunlight reflecting off of the atmosphere thats why at night there is no blue

Answer 3

Light scattering through nitrogen molecules causes the blue colour.

Answer 4

Its something to do with the light spectrum and the light particles hitting the atmostphere.

Answer 5

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 6

The molecules of the gases that make up air scatter blue light in all directions

   Molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, which account for more than 98 percent of the gases that make up air, are just the right size to scatter blue light. The light from the sun is “white;” that is, it has all of the colors. But the blue colors “bounce” off of molecules of air, going in all directions. No matter what direction you look in during the day, blue light is coming toward you from the sky, unless clouds hide the sky.

Answer 7

The molecules of air and other fine particles in the atmosphere have size smaller than the wavelength of visible light .These are more effective in scattering light of shorter wavelengths at the blue end than light of longer wavelengths at the red end.The red light has wavelength about 1.8 times greater than blue light .Thus when sunlight passes through the atmosphere ,the fine particles in air scatter the blue colour than red.The scattered blue light enters our eyes.If the earth had no atmosphere.there would not have been any scattering.Then ,the sky would have looked dark.

Answer 8

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.