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Why is the sky blue?
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2 Replies
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The sky appears blue to the human eye due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering.
Here’s a simple explanation:
Rayleigh Scattering: When sunlight reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, it interacts with gases and particles in the air. Shorter wavelengths of light, such as blue and violet, are scattered more effectively by the gases and particles in the atmosphere than longer wavelengths like red and yellow.
Blue Light: Since blue light is scattered more than other colors in the spectrum, it bounces around in the atmosphere and ends up reaching our eyes from all directions. This is why we see the sky as blue during the day.
At Sunset and Sunrise: During sunrise and sunset, the sun is lower in the sky, and its light has to pass through more of Earth’s atmosphere. This longer path causes more scattering of the shorter blue and violet wavelengths, allowing the longer red and orange wavelengths to dominate the sky’s colors, giving us the beautiful hues we see during these times.
So, the sky appears blue primarily due to the scattering of sunlight by the Earth’s atmosphere, with shorter blue wavelengths being scattered more effectively than longer wavelengths.
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The sky appears blue primarily due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. Here’s how it works:
Sunlight Composition: Sunlight, or white light, is made up of different colors, each with varying wavelengths. Blue light has a shorter wavelength, while red light has a longer wavelength.
Atmosphere Interaction: As sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, it interacts with molecules and small particles in the air. Because blue light is scattered in all directions more than other colors due to its shorter wavelength, it becomes the dominant color we see when we look up.
Angle of the Sun: The scattering effect is more pronounced when the sun is higher in the sky, which is why the sky appears bluer during midday. During sunrise and sunset, the sunlight passes through a thicker layer of the atmosphere, scattering the shorter blue wavelengths and allowing the longer red and orange wavelengths to dominate, resulting in beautiful sunset colors.
In summary, the blue appearance of the sky is due to the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere, with blue light being scattered more than other colors.
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