Search results
Jan 3, 2023 · Blue skies? So first things first: when we see a blue sky on a sunny day, what are we seeing? Are we seeing blue nitrogen or blue oxygen? The simple answer is no. Instead the blue light we see is scattered sunlight.
Oct 23, 2023 · The sky is blue. Now there’s something we can all agree on (although you’re welcome to poke your head outside and check). But there was a time when that wasn’t true. The sky gets its color ...
- How Is Light Scattered?
- The Sky During The Day
- Why Does The Sky Look Red During Sunrise and Sunset?
- Skies on Other Planets
- Why Is The Sea Blue?
The Earth’s atmosphere is composed of lots of different air molecules. Sunlight can be redirected by the air molecules and this is known as 'scattering'. The size of these molecules is much smaller than the wavelengths of visible light. The type of scattering that occurs is known as Rayleigh scattering named after Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt...
At noon, when the Sun is overhead it appears white. This is because the light travels a shorter distance through the atmosphere to get to us; it’s scattered very little, even the blue light. During the day the sky looks blue because it’s the blue light that gets scattered the most. It’s redirected into many different directions all over the sky, wh...
During sunrise or sunset, the sky appears to change colour. When the Sun is low in the sky, the light has to travel a longer distance through the Earth’s atmosphere so we don’t see the blue light because it gets scattered away. Instead, we see the red and orange light that travels towards us since this light hasn’t been scattered very much. Hence t...
Other planets don’t have an atmosphere exactly like ours, and so their skies would look different. Mars’s atmosphere is much thinner than the Earth’s - less than one per cent. The low density of air molecules means that the Rayleigh scattering that causes our skies to be blue on Earth has a very small effect on Mars. We might expect it to have a ve...
So the Earth’s sky isn’t blue due to it reflecting the colour of the seas and oceans. But what makes the sea blue – is it reflecting the blue of the sky? It’s not the sky that makes open water appear blue. It’s once again due to how different wavelengths of light interact with different substances. Water molecules are good at absorbing longer wavel...
What's the scientific reason behind Earth's sky appearing blue to the human eye? And what's the real colour of the sky?
Oct 11, 2024 · This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sunlight reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead.
Sep 8, 2023 · We've all probably looked up and wondered why the sky is blue instead of, say, brown. The sky is blue because of the way Earth's atmosphere scatters light from the sun.
People also ask
Why do we see a blue sky most of the time?
Why is the sky blue instead of brown?
Why is the sky blue at night?
Why is the sky blue on other planets?
Why does the sky look white at noon?
Why is the sky a lighter blue?
Nov 4, 2023 · All of Earth's diversity is blanketed under a blue sky. But why is the sky blue? It's not a reflection of Earth's oceans. The real explanation requires a bit of particle...
