Why Is The Sky Blue: The Scientific Reason

Why Is The Sky Blue: The Scientific Reason

The sky is not blue because it reflects the ocean. It does not work that way. If that is the case, then it does not explain why it remains blue when seen from a landlocked area within a vast landmass. Nonetheless, there is a simple scientific reason behind the color of the sky.

The Scientific Reason of Why The Sky Is Blue: A Short and Simplified Answer

The light coming from the sun is actually a combination of different wavelengths from the visible light spectrum, in addition to the wavelengths of infrared and ultraviolet radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Note that the different colors of white light can be seen when it passes through a prism. The rainbow also exemplifies the different colors of the light coming from the sun.

Remember that what people see as “sunlight” is the visible light. When sunlight reaches the atmosphere of the Earth, some of the colors of its light is scattered into different directions by particles and gasses in the air due to its wave-particle properties.

The blue light is scattered more than the other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is the primary reason why people see a blue sky most of the time.

In other words, when looking directly at the sun, it looks more red or yellow because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

Violet light has shorter wavelengths than blue light. However, the reason why the sky appears blue instead of violet is that most of the violet light gets absorbed in the atmosphere and the human eyes are less sensitive to it

Nevertheless, the simplest explanation of why the sky is blue is because of the sunlight. However, the sky is not always blue. Sometimes, it appears yellow or red.

The sky appears yellow whenever the air is clear and the sun is about to set because the sunlight has passed a long distance through the air and some of the blue light has been scattered away.

Skies during sunsets appear red if the air has many small particles from natural sources or pollution caused by humans. Sunsets over the sea appear from red to orange because of the salt particles in the air.

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