When sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere, it bounces off of molecules. The air molecules scatter light — just like billiard balls do when they collide.
The shorter the wavelength of the light, the more it gets scattered. This is why the sun’s light looks blue.
Sky Blue Is Due to Rayleigh Scattering
Sky blue is a result of the light scattering off of gases in the atmosphere. This process is called Rayleigh scattering.
The particles in the air are much smaller than the wavelengths of light emitted by the sun. This causes collisions between the light and the small atoms and molecules in the gas.
What is Rayleigh Scattering?
The blue sky you see in the morning or at sunset is due to Rayleigh Scattering. This is a type of scattering that occurs when light strikes particles that are smaller than the wavelengths of the visible spectrum, ranging from 400 to 700 nanometers.
The light that you see in the sky is scattered off of the molecules of the air in our atmosphere. These molecules are made up of gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. The combination of these elements, plus the presence of ions and other particles, causes light to scatter.
Since the atoms of these molecules have a diameter of only a few nanometers, the amount of light that is scattered by them is small. This is why we can’t see the molecules in a crystal, which would have a much larger size.
In air, the density of molecules changes a lot over time, which is why there are all kinds of microscopic density fluctuations that cause particles to scatter light. This happens because of a law called Rayleigh’s Law.
Using this law, you can calculate how much of the blue and red light in the sky is scattered by the molecules. You will find that the blue light is scattered more than the red, because blue has a shorter wavelength than red.
The orange and yellow wavelengths in the spectrum are also scattered by the molecules in air, but they don’t have a large enough effect on the color of sunlight. So near sunrise and sunset, as the sun moves through the clouds, these wavelengths aren’t scattered, but the remaining red and orange colors remain.
This is why you can see a blue sky, but you won’t be able to see the colors of the cloud particles. However, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other colors of light in the sky.
Why is the sky blue?
The sun is a very important source of light and the Earth’s atmosphere is filled with gas molecules like oxygen, nitrogen and argon. As sunlight passes through the air it is absorbed and reflected by these molecules. This is known as Rayleigh scattering, named after Lord John Rayleigh who first described it in 1870’s.
When sunlight hits a molecule of the air, it is bounced around, or scattered, and then comes out mostly at right angles to the direction it was traveling when it hit the molecule. This is why light from the sun looks white, but if we look at red paint under blue light, it looks black.
These are the same things that happen when light from the sun hits particles of water, dust or even cloud droplets. The different colors of light that hit these particles are reflected in many directions, so that the reflected light is white, but it still contains all the color of the original light.
Another reason that the sky looks blue is because it is absorbing the longer wavelengths of the sun’s rays, leaving only the shorter red, orange and yellow rays to shine directly at our eyes. These rays are most visible at sunrise and sunset, when the Sun is lower in the sky and must travel through more air to reach our eyes.
During the daytime, most of the incoming direct sunlight is reflected or scattered away by the air, making it appear more white than blue. As the day progresses, however, more of the shorter wavelengths pass through, making sunsets and early mornings look more red and orange.
It is also worth remembering that the Earth’s atmosphere is filled with water vapor, so that when sunlight hits it, it is absorbed and reflected by water molecules. These water molecules are good at absorbing longer wavelengths of light, so that when they reflect sunlight, the resulting reflected light is more orange or red.
This process of light absorption and reflection is repeated throughout the day, with different substances and gases absorbing and reflecting different colors. This is why you see the different shades of red, orange and yellow in the oceans. It is also why the sky is blue in the morning and evening, when it is re-absorbing the longer wavelengths of the sun’s light and leaving only the shorter red, orange and yellow wavelengths to shine at our eyes.
How is the sky blue?
If you’ve ever looked at a clear day sky, you might have noticed that the sky is blue. That’s because the sunlight you see is made up of all the colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
When light hits the air, it is scattered by molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. These particles are very small, so they scatter short wavelengths like blue and violet much more than long ones like red and yellow.
This means that most of the sunlight you see is absorbed or scattered by the atmospheric particles, which give the sky its blue color. This is called Rayleigh scattering.
Physicist Lord Rayleigh, who died in 1871, developed a model of how scattering works when atmospheric particles are smaller than the wavelengths of light. It showed that the intensity of the scattered light depends on the fourth power of its wavelength, which is why shorter wavelengths are more likely to be scattered than longer ones.
So, the more the atmosphere is covered with these tiny particles, the more the light will be scattered and the more blue the sky will look. It’s this phenomenon that makes the sky look so blue during the day, when most of the light is coming from indirect sunlight: light that travels through the atmosphere and then hits your eyes.
The amount of scattering also varies with where the sunlight is coming from, so the sky appears bluer the farther away from the Sun you are looking. The farther out you are, the more light you’re seeing because there’s more room for it to pass through the atmosphere.
Another thing that makes the sky appear blue is that there are many different kinds of particles in the air. These include the fine particles that we often see in clouds and dust haze, and some larger ones, such as aerosols from plants.
These finer particles can be up to about 500 nanometers in size, which is just large enough for them to scatter blue light, and up to about 800 nm in size, which is the perfect size for scattering red light.
What makes the sky blue at sunset?
The sky is blue because it is made of many different wavelengths of light. Those wavelengths are scattered by molecules of gas (78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent other) and particles in Earth’s atmosphere. As they collide with each other, they recombine into white light that our eyes can see.
Because these wavelengths are so short, they have a lot of energy and can ping-pong around more than longer wavelengths, which are less energetic. These shorter wavelengths are at the violet end of the visible spectrum.
These wavelengths are also able to scatter more easily than the longer wavelengths, which have a lower energy and can’t ping-pong around as much. This is why we see so much more of the blue end of the spectrum than the red end.
In addition, because blue light is the most energetic of all the colors, it gets reflected and rescattered more than other colors. During a sunset, the sun’s rays travel a long way through the atmosphere, and that longer journey scatters out more of the blue wavelengths.
This means that the sunlight we see as the sun approaches the horizon is more blue than the light we see directly overhead. That’s why the sky near the horizon looks paler than the sky overhead, even when there’s no cloud cover.
At the same time, as we move up in the atmosphere, more and more of those shorter wavelengths are absorbed. That’s why, as we go higher in the sky, the sky turns darker and bluish.
During the day, the sunlight shines through Earth’s thick, dense atmosphere. It is filled with molecules that scatter the light of different wavelengths, but not all colors.
The colors in the spectrum that we see – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – have a lot of energy and a high frequency. They recombine into white light, but not all of them are reflected back to our eyes.
For example, the short wavelength blue light reaches our eyes, but it is mostly absorbed by water and reflected back at us. That’s why sunlight reflects off the ocean and makes it look blue.
The Sun’s Radiation
The sky is blue because of three factors: 1. Light of various wavelengths scatters by different amounts in Earth’s atmosphere, 2. Our eyes are very sensitive to these reflected and scattered colors, and 3.
The sun emits radiation that stretches from the highest-energy (ultraviolet) to the lowest-energy (blue). Its rays of light are so hot that they heat the surrounding gas in its photosphere, making it glow in a spectrum from violet to red.
At noon, the Sun is directly overhead and the rays pass through very little of the Earth’s atmosphere to reach us. However, as the sun gets lower in the sky during sunrise and sunset, more of the rays have to travel through the atmosphere to reach our eyes.
During this long passage, most of the shorter blue and violet wavelengths are filtered out of the sunlight before it reaches our eyes. This is because the rays of shorter wavelengths have to travel through more gas molecules and other particles.
When the rays of longer wavelengths hit water vapor or dust near the horizon, they mix with this air to produce the red and orange tints we see during sunrise and sunset. The resulting color is often referred to as a “sunset” or “reddish orange.”
If the sky were dark, the rays of sunlight would be all absorbed by the air and the sky would appear black. Our eyes are very sensitive to these reflected, scattered, and refracted colors.
Our eye’s sensitivity to the incoming wavelengths of light is why we can distinguish all the colors in the Sun’s spectrum. If our eyes weren’t sensitive to these wavelengths, we’d only see white light from the sun.
The sun’s radiation is also a major source of energy for our planet. Solar energy is responsible for sustaining life on Earth and determining our climate.
The amount of solar energy that reaches the ground without being diffused, or scattered, is called direct beam solar radiation. Atmospheric conditions, including cloud cover, can reduce this by about 10% on clear days and 100% on thick, cloudy days.
The Atmosphere
The sky is blue because of the way the atmosphere scatters sunlight.
The atmosphere is the thin blanket of air that surrounds Earth. It helps trap the heat of the sun and protects the surface of our planet from harmful shortwave solar radiation.
It is made up of gases, aerosols (tiny particles of dust, spores, pollen, salt from sea spray, volcanic ash, smoke, and pollutants), and water vapor in varying amounts. Nitrogen and oxygen are by far the most common gases in the atmosphere, but a mixture of other gases is also found.
Although the composition of our atmosphere changes with time and temperature, nitrogen and oxygen make up about 78% and 21%, respectively, of the dry air we breathe. The other 1% is a mix of gases including argon and carbon dioxide.
The percentages of atmospheric gases change dramatically as you go up in altitude from sea level. For example, at 8 km there is about one-third the amount of oxygen as at 80 km.
As you go up in altitude, the pressure of the air becomes lower, which causes air to mix and create turbulence. This turbulence creates storm systems that are a regular part of our weather, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.
Aside from these natural weather events, the atmosphere is also responsible for transferring water evaporation from the oceans to the continents. This is crucial to the sustainability of our ecosystems.
Since the atmosphere is a dynamic body, it is important to understand how it works. The ozone layer in the stratosphere, for example, is created when ultraviolet radiation from the sun is captured by ozone molecules. This layer is also responsible for the formation of aurorae.
The atmosphere also plays a crucial role in Earth’s long-term climate evolution. Over the last 3.5 billion years, plate tectonics have rearranged the planet’s continents, allowing for the transfer of carbon dioxide to large land-based stores of carbonate minerals. This process has resulted in the current climate that we live in.
Daytime skies are blue due to Rayleigh scattering. This happens when sunlight passes through air that is several kilometers or miles thick.
Scattering causes shorter wavelengths associated with violet and blue colors to be scattered more, creating the impression that the sky appears blue instead of violet.
The Sun?s Radiation
Sunlight plays an essential role in keeping Earth alive and its climate stable, with sunlight reaching us via atmospheric layers through which molecules such as oxygen, nitrogen and other organic matter change its path into our bodies and altering its intensity by absorption or scattering.
Atmospheric atoms and molecules absorb shortwavelength ultraviolet radiation (UV), blocking it from reaching the ground and creating an ozone layer in the stratosphere. Ozone effectively blocks UV up to 190nm. Ozone also forms a thin barrier against other parts of solar spectrum that keep sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface.
However, the ozone layer is only weakly scattered in the lower troposphere where its effectiveness decreases as shorter wavelengths pass through more easily and creates more of a reddish tint to the Sun than usual.
This phenomenon is due to Raleigh’s Law, which states that shorter-wavelength light scatters more easily. As a result, our eyes tend to perceive sky blue in hazy conditions while on bright days higher up it appears more reddish-tinged.
On a typical day, our atmosphere’s ability to scatter sunlight efficiently is remarkable. At midday when the sun is directly overhead, approximately 8 kilometers separates its solar beam from our atmosphere’s upper surface – meaning the Sun must travel further still to reach our atmosphere’s upper layers.
Light is then scattered along a path that changes depending on time of day and latitude, with path length varying by 3.3% throughout the year; reaching its lowest point around Perihelion in January and peaking around Aphelion in July.
As a result of such variations in path length, ground solar radiation levels fluctuate depending on time of day and season. During summer months, solar constant peaks at around 1000W/m2, dropping gradually until reaching zero overnight.
The solar spectrum spans wavelengths ranging from 100 nanometers (nm) to 1 millimeter, divided into three bands: ultraviolet (UV), visible and infrared light waves. Of these wavelengths, visible light waves have the highest frequencies with regards to visible radiation emitted by our sun.
The Sun?s Radiant Energy
Solar energy plays a central role in modern life and planet Earth’s operations, providing photosynthesis, rainfall, and electricity generation capabilities.
Energy comes from many sources, with the sun being one of the primary ones. Our planet orbits in an elliptical path around it that contains mostly hydrogen nuclei with just a trace of helium nuclei; electrons fly off from within its interior into space causing radiation that becomes visible light due to particle fusion within its core.
As Earth moves closer to the sun, more rays of light are generated every second, creating a brighter and more colorful sky at night. This phenomenon can be explained by various factors, including how its surface is warmer than most atmospheric layers; more sunrays reach Earth through this way and are then converted to heat energy that is used for various things from vaporizing ocean icebergs to cooking our meals.
Estimates suggest that solar radiation accounts for approximately one-third of the energy we expend each year on our planet, as it provides our greatest source of spectral energy efficiency in our solar system and keeps climate conditions balanced and comfortable on Earth.
The Sun?s Photosphere
The photosphere, which can be seen with the naked eye without needing a telescope, is the sun’s visible surface that’s easily accessible without using a telescope. It primarily consists of hydrogen with some additional helium, oxygen, carbon, neon, iron and other elements thrown in as well.
Temperatures inside the photosphere range from 2 million degC (3.5 million degF) at the center to as much as 17 million degC (9.4 million degF) near its edge, though interior layers of the Sun tend to remain cooler due to atmospheric pressure at these depths, as well as their inherent processes for heating and cooling.
Temperatures within the photosphere are only approximately one-third as hot as those outside, due to its layer of cool gases beneath it that absorb continuous radiation emitted from hotter gas molecules and emit by them as continuous radiation; this process creates the visible light spectrum seen as sunlight from our Sun.
The chromosphere is another part of the solar atmosphere, consisting of relatively cool gases positioned over hotter gases in the photosphere. The chromosphere stretches from a few hundred kilometers above photosphere up to an altitude of roughly 2000 km before merging into corona.
Corona The layer nearest the Sun’s core, known as the corona, can reach temperatures that are several hundred times hotter than those experienced on Earth – even reaching millions of degrees kelvin!
At the outer edges of the corona are sunspots, regions with temporarily lower temperatures than nearby regions. Often surrounded by lighter regions called faculae, sunspots provide temporary relief.
Faculae are very bright spots on the photosphere caused by magnetic activity. These areas often appear nearer the darker limb of the Sun and could indicate sunspot formation in its vicinity.
Filaments are another type of astronomical feature. A filament is an arc of electrified gas held together by powerful magnetic fields. Filaments often appear above sunspots and last from several days up to several months.
The chromosphere can best be observed during a total solar eclipse when it appears as an amethyst-red crescent or diamond ring, while outside eclipses it’s visible through monochromatic light from hydrogen atoms emitting the H-alpha line at 6562.8 angstroms – therefore an H-alpha filter telescope must be used in order to observe it.
The Sun?s Corona
The Sun’s corona is the brilliant “atmosphere” surrounding our star that extends millions of kilometers into space. Most visible during total solar eclipses, it can also be observed through special telescopes known as coronagraphs.
The solar corona is the outermost layer of our Sun’s atmosphere and changes size and shape due to its magnetic field. Made up of hydrogen and helium gases, its temperature reaches many million degrees Celsius – far hotter than any surface on our planet!
When sunlight from the photosphere reaches the corona, electrons within it scatter it back towards us in a form of a halo around the Sun. Its brightness depends on how many electrons there are within its bounds, and will vary considerably over a solar radius distance from its surface.
Due to its great distance, studying and observing the Sun’s corona can be an arduous endeavor. Ionized gases within it shine brightly while its temperature surpasses even that of its surface.
Scientists have recently discovered mysterious web-like structures in the ultraviolet part of the Sun’s atmosphere, which may help explain why its corona is so hot, as well as what happens when it releases energy into space as solar wind.
These observations are especially fascinating because they reveal an intricate network of plasma particles composed of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms stripped from their nuclei by heat.
An astounding discovery is how electrons in the corona move at such high speeds that they can escape the Sun’s gravity and head out into space.
This movement can cause various phenomena, from exploding plasma particles to solar wind that disrupt electronics and cell phones on Earth to radio communications noise that disrupts radio signals and knocks out power grids.
As the Sun sends its energy into space, its particles expand to form plasma. As waves of plasma extend radially outward from our Sun, they generate solar wind – an invisible force which flows radially outward and shapes its atmosphere reshaping our world’s weather as they go.
The Moon
The Moon orbits the Earth every month, showing us a series of different phases. The full moon is the most popular and best time to observe it, but each phase has its own distinctive features. The New Moon phase, when the Moon is almost fully sunk in the Earth’s crater, is a spectacular sight, as is the Full Moon, which appears in a brilliant orange glow on a dark night sky.
The moon’s appearance also varies depending on the time of day. At night, when there aren’t enough atmospheric particles to act as a filter for the light, the moon can take on a bluish tint. This is a very rare occurrence, and even more so during total lunar eclipses, when the Moon’s shadow blocks all direct sunlight from reaching our planet’s atmosphere.
Blue-colored moons occur when smoke or other particles in the atmosphere scatter the red part of the light spectrum, leaving the rest untouched and giving the moon a bluish tint. This isn’t something that happens regularly, and it’s not easy to catch a blue moon – only a few of them occur each century.
To get a blue moon, you have to be in the right place at the right time. There are some rare occurrences where the moon actually looks blue, such as following a massive volcanic eruption or during a total solar eclipse.
During the eruption of Krakatoa, for example, plumes of ash or oil/tar particles 1 micron wide efficiently blocked red light but allowed blue light to pass through, which made the moon look bluish at night. Wildfires can also give the moon a bluish appearance.
Other rare occurrences that have the potential to turn the moon blue are when dust and smoke particles in the air act as a filter for the light. These particles can be quite large, so they need to be in the right place at the right times to scatter the red part of the spectrum, making it appear bluish.
But most of the time, the moon’s surface is a grayish-white, and the refraction of sunlight can give it a reddish rusty appearance. During eclipses, the Moon’s shadow can also block red light from reaching the atmosphere, which can give it a bluish-gray appearance.
Children frequently ask why the sky is blue, with various incorrect answers such as reflecting ocean waves or oxygen being blue being common responses. But in reality, there’s a straightforward and uncomplicated answer.
Light is scattered as it passes through an atmosphere, with blue light being scattered more than red light due to minute molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the air. This phenomenon is called Rayleigh Scattering.
Rayleigh Scattering
As sunlight passes through our atmosphere, it reflects off of tiny gas particles and scatters in all directions – much like when shining a flashlight through milk (that’s why it appears deeper blue when seen with polarized sunglasses). This phenomenon, called Rayleigh Scattering, is responsible for giving our skies their blue hue.
When sunlight strikes airborne molecules, it scatters more strongly in the blue part of the spectrum than red due to wavelength differences; blue light wavelengths being shorter. Due to increased scattering in this direction, blue light takes a longer path through air before arriving at our eyes whereas shorter red wavelengths travel straighter toward us.
It means that sunlight contains both blue and orange wavelengths, meaning that when we see bluest parts of the sky (around sunset or sunrise), all that blue light is being scattered away from us and away from our eyes.
Dust and water droplets don’t create the blue hue in the sky alone – all atmospheric gases scatter sunlight too, with smaller gases (oxygen and nitrogen) scattering more blue light than red or orange light while larger molecules (carbon dioxide and helium) tend to scatter all three hues more equally.
Under clear atmospheric conditions, it may be hard to distinguish between blue and white skies. But in mountainous regions where volcanic eruptions or forest fires create thick smog clouds that obscure visibility, the sky can appear brownish-hued instead.
Sunset or sunrise sees more atmosphere come between sunlight and our eyes than during a regular day, meaning more likely for it to be scattered by bluer gases in that part of the atmosphere, giving the sunlight its reddish tint.
Dust and Water Droplets
As sunlight hits Earth’s atmosphere, its light can be scattered in various directions by interaction with gases in the air such as oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Based on their size and position, different wavelengths of light scatter more or less easily depending on their size and position; short wavelengths (blues and violets) tend to scatter more readily than long wavelengths such as red or yellows – this interaction gives our sky its signature hues.
The same principle explains why sunsets appear with reddish tints and why the daytime sky appears blue: due to light scattering from dust particles and water droplets in the atmosphere; additionally, more blue than violet light emanates from our sun; our eyes being more sensitive to blue light than violet wavelengths.
Apart from natural occurrences, we also employ artificial means to produce blue skies. One method involves water and air pollution forming hazes; another uses forest fires or volcanic eruptions as sources for fine particles in the air, which act to scatter blue light more effectively than their wavelength.
Clouds may appear white due to similar scattering processes that give the sky its signature blue hue. When light strikes clouds it scatters in all directions but is effectively neutralized due to larger molecules like water droplets absorbing some of it. Furthermore, white colors become even more prominent when it strikes darker bases of clouds which enhance this appearance further.
At times, it is possible to artificially turn the sky blue by intentionally adding dust or polluting gases. A glacier’s melt can produce particles into the atmosphere that have a blueish tint; similar processes occur when volcanoes erupt producing smog. Unfortunately, such solutions don’t last very long or provide as spectacular of results as natural phenomena described earlier.
Oxygen and Nitrogen
Earth’s atmosphere is predominantly composed of oxygen and nitrogen molecules. When sunlight hits our atmosphere, it becomes scattered by these gas molecules; short wavelengths of blue light (which our eyes can perceive) get spread out while longer wavelengths like red, orange and yellow get absorbed by them; leaving behind a predominantly blue sky for us to enjoy.
As we observe the Sun during the daytime, its light is typically blue because it comes from far up in the sky. This occurs because sunlight must pass through more atmosphere before reaching our eyes than when lower in the sky at sunset and sunrise when less atmosphere exists to scatter its rays and explain why redder hues appear instead.
If the Sun were located in space, its surroundings would likely appear much darker due to an absence of atmosphere to diffuse light. On Earth however, light would still be scattered by gas molecules but their scattering effects would be far less intense due to being spread apart more.
Air molecules can scatter blue light because their electrons have frequencies closer to those of blue than red light, making their vibration rate increase when exposed to it and leading to its scattering (Rayleigh Scattering). Meanwhile, most of the remaining sunlight continues its journey as normal with different hues.
Oxygen and nitrogen comprise approximately 99% of our atmosphere’s volume. Both diatomic molecules share an area on the periodic table with hydrogen and helium – two other important gases found within our universe that liquify at relatively low temperatures to form gases that only exist as molecules.
Reflection
One of the questions children frequently pose is “Why is the sky blue?” To provide an answer, we need an understanding of reflection. Refraction occurs when light hits an object and bounces off it into another direction – here, in this instance visible light is being reflected back towards us from that object.
Color of surfaces depends on the wavelengths that reflect back onto them from light sources. Blue light will reflect differently off of water than brick surfaces due to smaller wavelengths in water particles than those present in brick ones – leading us to perceive an almost bluish tint to skies when viewing bodies of water.
Light may not reflect off a surface at all if its texture scatters light in different directions, which occurs when uneven or rough surfaces cause light rays to scatter across them.
Light traveling through an object and striking an eye generates an electric signal sent directly to the brain, where it is then interpreted by neurons to produce an image. An object reflected off a surface also generates an image; for smooth surfaces this will result in a mirror-like reflection; otherwise if its texture or particles disperse evenly across its surface this may produce a distorted effect resulting in discolored shadows on either side.
Scientists have concluded that the sky’s characteristic hue can be traced to Rayleigh scattering; however, other reasons can also contribute to its blue hue – for instance a planet without an atmosphere cannot have one since sunlight does not reach the surface; Mars on the other hand has an amber tint due to the dust cloud present in its atmosphere.
As well, when the Sun is low in the sky – such as during sunrise or sunset – its light has to penetrate more of the atmosphere, leading to greater scattering of blue light; therefore, less will reach your eyes than expected. Conversely, red light tends to reach you more efficiently.
As sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere, its light is dispersed throughout by air molecules in all directions, with blue wavelengths being dispersed more strongly than others, thus giving the sky its distinctive blue hue.
Blue light passing through the atmosphere combines with other wavelengths to form the white hue of the sky, while longer wavelengths such as red and yellow pass directly through to your eyes.
Sunlight
As sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes scattered by gases and particles in its path, with shorter wavelengths (blue/violet) being scattered more than longer wavelengths such as red/yellow; as a result, Sunlight becomes dispersed across visible spectrum, producing what is known as Rayleigh scattering.
If a human were living on another planet, their atmosphere might consist of gasses and particles made up of gases such as oxygen. A planet without an atmosphere cannot boast clear blue skies as sunlight cannot reach the surface without getting scattered by atmospheric molecules.
Scientists know that sunlight doesn’t only come in blue hues. Instead, its colors span across the visible spectrum from purple and red. After much experimentation and time spent determining this fact, scientists eventually came to realize that when sunlight passes from air into water medium, its wavelengths move at different speeds which allows scientists to identify each individual color of sunlight passing through a prism.
Air pollution is the number-one determining factor of blue sky appearance. Particles suspended in polluted air act as Tyndall scatterers, turning red or even yellow skies more red-tinged or even yellowish in hue. Conversely, cleaner atmospheres contain fewer particles to scatter sunlight resulting in bluer skies.
Horizon is also a key factor when it comes to creating the blue skies you see around you. The closer the horizon is to you, the longer it takes the Sun’s light to travel through the atmosphere and reach you – meaning more blue and violet parts of its spectrum may escape into space, while red and yellow hues stay on their direct path towards reaching you.
As you climb higher in elevation, air becomes dryer and less dense, leading to reduced light scattering and creating dark blue or bluish-violet skies as you near the troposphere.
Atmosphere
One of the first questions people ask when contemplating why the sky is blue is, “Is it because it reflects the ocean?” While this could be part of the explanation, the true cause lies with our atmosphere: all those gases which compose it and make up our air we breathe every day.
As light passes through the atmosphere, its path may be scattered and altered in various ways. Red and green wavelengths tend to pass straight through, as their length exceeds that of gas molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen; violets and blues, on the other hand, tend to get scattered more efficiently due to having frequencies closer to natural resonant frequencies of air molecules and atoms.
Rayleigh Scattering is a process similar to light scattering through water or prisms; air molecules don’t actually bend the light they scatter – they simply change its hue.
Rayleigh scattering gives sunlight its characteristic blue hue when reaching our eyes, leaving an appearance similar to the sky when there are clouds or dust haze present in the atmosphere – these particles being larger than wavelengths and thus spreading light equally, producing a whiter tone than usual.
Colors in the sky can also depend on your proximity to the horizon, since sunlight travels a greater distance through the atmosphere before reaching you. As the sun gets lower in the sky at sunset and sunrise, this distance increases, which causes more direct sunlight to be scattered before reaching you directly and shifting its emphasis toward blue and green instead of red hues.
That is why the sky appears brightest overhead and gradually fades towards the horizon, and why some people feel happier and more relaxed under a blue sky; studies demonstrate how blue light stimulates brain activity to produce serotonin.
Horizon
The sky’s color comes from three factors: sunlight, Earth’s atmosphere and our eyes. Sunlight consists of light with many wavelengths that is scattered by our atmosphere in different amounts; our eyes are most sensitive to blue-colored light so these three components come together to form its beautyful hue.
Horizon is where sky meets land, and near its edges it becomes darker due to more atmosphere having to pass through sunlight wavelengths being scattered by atmospheric particles and thus lessening its blue color as you get closer to the horizon.
On a mountain top, the blue of the sky appears more vibrant due to the decreased atmospheric resistance for sunlight to pass through. Conversely, at an equator the horizon is much closer to Earth and thus sunlight must travel through more of its atmosphere; shorter wavelengths like blue and violet sunlight tend to be scattered by atmospheric molecules more readily than its longer-wavelength red version, giving rise to lighter hues at the horizon.
As soon as the Sun reaches directly overhead at noon, its light will penetrate further through a more limited atmosphere than during sunset, giving rise to deeper shades of blue in the horizon. On the contrary, more atmosphere allows light from sunlight entering.
Blue sky transactions in business refer to transactions with high potential for success, which might involve assets like brand equity, customer lists, intellectual property or other intangible assets. Although such deals can be challenging to structure successfully, their effect can have significant effects on a company’s value.
Consider this when gazing upon majestic mountain vistas or admiring the blue hue of a clear sky: what makes these scenes so breathtakingly beautiful? Light interacting with different substances in our atmosphere results in our eyes reacting favorably to this visual spectacle, producing its endless blue.
Elevation
The color of the sky changes depending on time of day and location, typically appearing deeper when the sun is high in the sky and lighter at sunset and night when lighting conditions fade; sometimes air quality impacts its hue too; brown or yellowish smog can reduce blueness further still.
Reasons behind why the sky is blue include sunlight entering Earth’s atmosphere and being scattered by air molecules into all directions, with shorter wavelengths (mainly blue ) of sunlight scattered more strongly by this process, giving rise to its distinctive hue. Other colors of the spectrum tend to absorb more intensely, so less of it reaches your eyes directly.
Higher elevations tend to have thinner atmospheres with less air to scatter sunlight, making the sky appear darker or even an unusual color of blue than you’re used to seeing. When I visited Western Australia in January, for instance, I witnessed almost 9,000 feet of elevation with deepest blue skies that truly amazed me!
Blue skies can bring serenity and relaxation, no doubt contributing to feelings of peace and wellbeing. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that exposure to blue light increases serotonin levels in the brain which in turn enhances mood and cognitive function.
Next time you gaze upon a beautiful blue sky, keep this in mind: its hue is determined by several factors including Rayleigh scattering and atmospheric composition. The blue hue may change with time of day or location – even turning other hues at night when there is natural phenomenon such as northern lights! Blue skies are truly beautiful sight to behold!
As sunlight passes through our atmosphere, its light is scattered in all directions; light at the blue end of the spectrum is dispersed more strongly than other hues.
Rayleigh Scattering produces what we know as blue skies; their hue softens towards the horizon due to more of our atmosphere being exposed by sunlight passing through it.
Scattering of Light
As white light from the Sun passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes deflected or scattered in different wavelengths by gas molecules in our atmosphere – redder wavelengths tend to get deflected less than bluer ones – an effect known as Rayleigh scattering after British astronomer Lord Rayleigh first discovered it in 1870.
Reasons behind why the sky looks blue can be found in oxygen molecules in the atmosphere scattering blue-ish light more than other colors due to being smaller than wavelengths of light.
At some level, all colors in the visible light spectrum are scattered by air molecules to some degree, although its effects vary according to wavelength of light. Violet light has very short wavelength and so its light waves scatter more readily than blue or green ones – thus explaining why sky always seems blue!
If oxygen were absent or its molecules had larger sizes, the sky might appear yellow or even brown in hue. Dust, pollution and water vapor also have the ability to alter its hue in much the same way that oxygen does.
Sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere must travel farther before reaching you than that from a moon’s surface, causing more of its shorter wavelengths to scatter before making contact with us – giving rise to sunset and sunrise lights that appear reddish orange in hue as more blue and violet light has been scattered away by their journey and failed to make its destination.
Open water, such as lakes and oceans, appears blue due to the same phenomenon that makes the sky appear so. Water molecules absorb blue and violet wavelengths from sunlight but allow red, orange and yellow wavelengths through. Our eyes then see these red and orange wavelengths reflected back as blue with a green tint.
Sunlight reflecting off clouds or dust particles floating in the air will appear white due to their larger particle sizes than wavelengths of light. The same principle holds true for mountainous regions surrounded by haze due to forest fires or volcanic eruptions causing it.
Rayleigh Scattering
Rayleigh Scattering explains why the sky appears blue during daytime and red at sunset, rerouting light from particles in the atmosphere to redirect it in various ways. Light is scattered by molecules when electromagnetic fields hit molecules with charged molecules in them and redistribute charges around molecules by oscillations in molecular charges; oscillations cause color changes of radiation emitted by them and consequently change their hue causing Rayleigh Scattering phenomena to take place; more blue light from the Sun gets scattered than violet and indigo light; thus giving rise to Daytime blue and red skies at sunset!
Our atmosphere is filled with various gases such as Nitrogen, Oxygen and Hydrogen as well as dust and pollution. When sunlight enters our atmosphere it interacts with these gasses through Rayleigh Scattering; where atoms and molecules in these gasses collide with electromagnetic waves from the Sun which travel through space causing scattering to take place and change direction. However, Rayleigh Scattering only happens if particle sizes are much smaller than its wavelength which explains why only blue skies can result from this process and not purple, pink or yellow ones.
As soon as solar radiation hits gas molecules in our atmosphere, it scatters in an extremely predictable fashion due to atoms and molecules being smaller than wavelengths of visible electromagnetic waves. Shorter wavelengths like blue and violet tend to be scattered more than longer red and indigo waves from the Sun, thus giving rise to blue skies during daytime and red sunset skies.
Refraction by water droplets and dust in the air also alters the color of the sky, known as Mie Scattering. When light passes through a prism, its path bends due to variations in speed as it travels through it causing refraction; its color depends on energy levels therefore creating rainbows as a result.
Polarity
Sunlight produces light of various wavelengths that we detect depending on the sensitivity of our cones (which detect different wavelengths), and how our brain interprets those signals. One reason why the sky appears blue is due to sunlight reflecting off water molecules polarity which adhere to one another rather than green or red molecules found elsewhere; these polar molecules absorb light well due to being adhered together by strong adhesive forces; these droplets of water also tend to absorb it easily when present as droplets in clouds, further contributing to its blue hue in turn reflecting off of both bodies together makes for its blue hue as light reflects off of both bodies simultaneously!
Polarization of light scattering depends on wavelength, with shorter wavelengths being scattered more strongly than longer ones. In the lower atmosphere, small molecules of oxygen and nitrogen scatter blue and violet light more than red light.
As sunlight travels further through the atmosphere, its light becomes increasingly scattered, which explains why the sky fades to pale blue as it nears the horizon. Furthermore, shorter wavelengths have farther to travel and therefore have more opportunities for absorption by gas molecules or the Earth’s surface.
Notice how the sky becomes paler as you approach the horizon? This is due to blue light scattered through air having to travel further before reaching your eye and this further dispersion causes it to appear weaker.
Tyndall and Rayleigh initially assumed that the color blue came from dust particles or drops of water vapour in the atmosphere; but it was soon discovered that molecules’ polarity played a critical role. Einstein provided an intricate explanation of this phenomenon’s physical complexities; yet its general effect can easily be grasped: their polarity caused them to strongly scatter blue and violet wavelengths while dispersing other colors less strongly.
Wetness
As most of us know, when water becomes wet it turns blue because its molecules reflect blue light while absorbing other colors of the spectrum. A similar process affects the color of sky on clear days – sunlight mostly reflecting off gas molecules in the atmosphere while longer wavelengths such as red, orange and yellow are absorbed while shorter wavelengths such as blue are scattered off by them to reach your eyes.
Similar principles explain why the sky looks different at different times of year or in various locations around the world. On foggy or stormy days, depending on how concentrated and large particles in the atmosphere are, they could appear white, gray or even brown depending on concentration and size of particles present. A dusty or polluted atmosphere could also scatter light differently, diminishing its blue appearance further.
At lower elevations, the sun appears more intense due to light having to travel farther through the atmosphere and being dispersed more diffusely; this allows longer wavelengths such as red and orange light to pass freely and gives sunset its vibrant color.
The blue hue of the sky can also be found in large bodies of water. Oceans and seas around the world reflect its hue due to how atmospheric refraction scatters sunlight; similar processes apply when reflecting and scattering sunlight through lakes, rivers and streams.
One last point: In outer space, away from Earth’s atmosphere, daytime can appear black even though sunlight is present due to no refraction of light from its environment. This same principle holds for other planets with thinner or nonexistent atmospheres; Mars for instance has different air molecules than we do on Earth that reflect and scatter sunlight differently, giving its sky a reddish-orange hue during daylight and an iridescent blue tint around sunset.