Why the sky looks blue The sky looks blue because of a phenomenon known as Rayleigh scattering. Here's a simplified explanation of why the sky looks blue:
Sunlight is made up of different colors of light, each with a different wavelength. These wavelengths range from shorter blue and violet wavelengths to longer red and orange wavelengths. When sunlight enters Earth's atmosphere, it encounters molecules and tiny particles in the air.
Molecules in the atmosphere such as nitrogen and oxygen are much smaller than the wavelengths of visible light. When sunlight interacts with these molecules, it scatters in different directions. However, the scattering is more pronounced for shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) than for longer wavelengths (red and orange).
The reason for this selective scattering lies in the size of the molecules and the wavelength of the light. Shorter wavelengths of light (blue and violet) have smaller sizes than longer wavelengths (red and orange). When sunlight passes through the atmosphere, the blue and violet light is scattered in all directions by many tiny molecules.
As a result of this scattering, blue light is scattered more widely in the atmosphere and reaches our eyes in all directions. This is why we think of the sky as blue during the day. Other colors of light, with longer wavelengths, scatter less than blue light, and are therefore less visible to our eyes.
Interestingly, at sunrise or sunset, sunlight's path through the atmosphere is longer and most of the blue and violet light is scattered farther. This leads to a greater proportion of longer wavelengths (red, orange and yellow) reaching our eyes, giving the sky a warm, reddish-orange color.
It is worth noting that atmospheric conditions, such as the presence of pollution, dust or water vapor, can affect the scattering process and change the appearance of the sky. However, the underlying cause of the sky's blue color is the scattering of shorter blue and violet wavelengths by molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.
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