why is the sky blue?

Question

why is the sky blue?

Answer 1

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 2

Because of Diffuse sky radiation



Diffuse sky radiation is solar radiation reaching the earth's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or suspensoids in the atmosphere. Also called skylight, diffuse skylight, or sky radiation. Of the total light removed from the direct solar beam by scattering in the atmosphere (approximately 25 percent of the incident radiation), about two-thirds ultimately reaches the earth as diffuse sky radiation.



Scattering (also called scatter) is the process by which small particles suspended in a medium of a different index of refraction diffuse a portion of the incident radiation in all directions. In (elastic) scattering, no energy transformation results, only a change in the spatial distribution of the radiation. The science of optics usually uses the term to refer to the deflection of photons that occurs when they are absorbed and re-emitted by atoms or molecules.



The sky is blue partly because air scatters short-wavelength light in preference to longer wavelengths. Where the sunlight is nearly tangent to the Earth's surface, 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, at sunrise and sunset.



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.



Individual gas molecules are too small to scatter light effectively. However, in a gas, the molecules move more or less independently of each-other, unlike in liquids and solids where the density is determined the the molecule's sizes. So the densities of gases, such as pure air, are subject to statistical fluctuations. Significant fluctuations are much more common on a small scale. It is mainly these density fluctuations that cause the sky to be blue.

Answer 3

the blue light is scattered by the gas molecules thus making the sky appear blue.

Answer 4

Tiny dust particles and water vapour in the air scatter the blue light from the sun more strongly than the red light. So it's blue.

Answer 5

because God created the sky blue.

Answer 6

k, so I'm not sure if ya want a real answer or what so I'll give ya one, it's blue 'cause of reflections or somethin' like that. but if ya just want a silly answer it's 'cause it is.

Answer 7

God's favorite color

Answer 8

because grass is green. lol

Answer 9

I don't really know.