• Question: why does the sky appear blue?

    Asked by Emily to Hummy, Lewis, James, Sandra on 7 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Lewis Wright

      Lewis Wright answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Its called Rayleigh Scattering.

      When light comes through the atmosphere, it gets refracted (turned slightly to move in a different direction) as it goes from the vacuum of space to the atmosphere of the planet.
      How much light is refracted (turned in a different direction) depends on the frequency of the light – the different frequencies we see as different colours.

      Blue light has a frequency that means as its travels through the atmosphere, it gets refracted down towards the Earth. Because the other colours travel at a different angle to blue, we don’t see them, and the sky appears blue 🙂

Comments