Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue? Well, the answer has to do with sunlight and the Earth’s atmosphere.
When sunlight reaches our atmosphere, it is made up of different colors. Sunlight is like a rainbow, containing all the colors of the rainbow. But, as sunlight enters the Earth’s atmosphere, something interesting happens.
The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of tiny particles, like dust and gas molecules. These particles are so small that they scatter sunlight in all directions. However, they tend to scatter shorter wavelengths of light more effectively than longer wavelengths.
Guess what color has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum?
It’s blue!
So, when sunlight enters the atmosphere, the blue light gets scattered in all directions by these tiny particles. This scattered blue light is what we see when we look up at the sky, making it appear blue to our eyes.
Interestingly, this is also why the sky can change colors. At sunrise and sunset, the sunlight has to pass through more of the Earth’s atmosphere, which scatters away more of the shorter blue wavelengths. This allows the longer red and orange wavelengths to dominate, creating the beautiful colors we often see during these times.
