September 13, 2006
Why is the Sky Blue?
Why is the sky blue? People have been asking this question for a long time now. Let’s see if you know the correct answer to this. And Nooo it’s not because the light reflects off the oceans.
The general explanation for blue sky was explained by Lord Rayleigh, a physicist and mathematician in the 1800’s.
Rayleigh’s theory was unique. He agreed with other scientists of the time that dust and other large particles in the atmosphere could scatter light, and that when this occurred, the spectral colors red and blue were revealed. Rayleigh also agreed that no light was absorbed by large particles, but he took this concept of scattering in the atmosphere one step further.
But the real answer to this is simply:
Sunlight is made up of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The gas molecules in the atmosphere interact with the sunlight before the light reaches our eyes.
The gas molecules in the atmosphere scatter the higher-energy blue portion of the sunlight more than they scatter the lower-energy red portion of the sunlight (this is called Rayleigh scattering, named for the physicist Lord John Rayleigh). The Sun appears reddish-yellow and the sky surrounding the Sun is colored by the scattered blue waves.
When the Sun is lower in the horizon (near sunrise or sunset), the sunlight must travel through a greater thickness of atmosphere than it does when it is overhead, and even more light is scattered (not just blue, but also green, yellow, and orange) before the light reaches your eyes. This makes the sun look much redder.
And that’s why the sky is blue.
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