Image description: Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere, causing the scattering of blue light. Image credit AI
Have you ever looked at the sky and wondered why it is blue? This happens because of sunlight and our atmosphere.
Sunlight looks white, but it is actually made up of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These colors travel in waves, just like waves in water. Some of these waves are shorter, like blue and violet, while others are longer, like red and orange.
Surrounding the Earth, there is a layer of gas called the atmosphere. This atmosphere is mostly made up of oxygen and nitrogen. When sunlight passes through the atmosphere, it interacts with these gases and particles.
When sunlight enters the atmosphere, the small light waves, like blue and violet, are scattered in all directions by the gases and particles in the atmosphere. This is called "Rayleigh scattering". Even though violet is scattered more than blue, our eyes are more sensitive to blue light, which is why we see the sky as blue.
Yes! Sometimes, at sunrise or sunset, the sky becomes red, orange, or pink. This is because sunlight has to pass through more of the atmosphere when the sun is low. The colors with longer waves, like red and orange, pass more easily through the atmosphere, and that is what we see.
The sky is blue because of the way sunlight is scattered in the atmosphere. The shorter light waves, like blue, are spread out in all directions, making the sky appear blue during the day.
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