Why is the Sky Blue?

People commonly associate blue with feelings of openness, stability and order – no wonder it has become so popular for corporate logos and apparel! When sunlight strikes the atmosphere, its wavelengths disperse in all directions – more efficiently for shorter wavelengths such as violet and blue which gives the sky its distinctive hue. The Sun…

Why the Sky is Blue

Have you ever noticed the gorgeous sky this week and wondered why its hue is blue? Well, it all boils down to some science involving physics and chemistry. Sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere is scattered by airborne particles and molecules, particularly gas molecules. Shorter wavelengths of light scatter more easily than longer ones, hence making…

Why is the Sky Blue Because of the Ocean?

People often mistakenly believe that the sky’s hue comes from ocean waves; however, this is incorrect: its hue results from how atmospheric molecules scatter light and reflect it back onto Earth’s surface. Light passing through the atmosphere tends to scatter more readily in blue and violet wavelengths due to their frequencies being closer to those…

Why is the Sky Always Blue?

Answer: Oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere scatter sunlight incoming, with blue wavelengths being scattered more often than red ones resulting in the sky appearing bluer than usual. But this explanation doesn’t explain why the sky doesn’t turn violet at sunset or why Martian skies have an earth-tone hue; that is because sunlight must…

Why is the Sky Blue?

Blue skies may seem to appear every day, but have you ever stopped to think why this happens? The answer lies within light’s path through our atmosphere. When sunlight reaches our atmosphere, it rebounds off gas molecules and scatters in all directions – blue wavelengths tend to disperse more easily than other colors. Rayleigh Scattering…

Why is the Sky Less Blue?

As sunlight passes through the atmosphere it gets refracted or scattered by air molecules; light nearer the blue end of the spectrum tends to get scattered more than other colors, giving a blue hue to the sky. At sunrise and sunset, light traveling through longer distances in the atmosphere becomes less scattered, allowing more red…

Why is the Sky Blue?

As sunlight passes through our atmosphere, its energy becomes scattered in various directions. Shorter wavelength light waves such as blue tend to disperse more widely than their red counterparts. John Tyndall and later Lord Rayleigh helped reveal why the sky appears blue. What is the colour of the sky? Rayleigh scattering is responsible for creating…