Why Blue?

The science behind the daytime sky

(Blue Sky — A Photo I Took)

To stop forgetting why the sky is blue, I decided to write it down…

The Sunlight appears white. But it consists of many colors with different wavelengths.

Light behaves like a wave, and wavelength is the measurement of distance between two successive peaks.

When the sunlight enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it interacts with the tiny air molecules. Because of this, light gets scattered in different directions.

Colors with shorter wavelengths will be scattered more effectively than the colors with longer wavelengths.

Violet and blue have shorter wavelengths when compared to other colors. So they get scattered more.

Although violet has a shorter wavelength than blue, some of it is absorbed in the atmosphere.

And, our eyes are more sensitive to blue.

This makes the sky appear predominantly blue 💙.