• Question: Why is the sky blue?

    Asked by anon-178910 to Emma, Jordan, Kate, Lucy, Pankaj, Samuel on 14 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-178904.
    • Photo: Jordan Moir

      Jordan Moir answered on 14 Jun 2018:


      Good question this is a physics kind of question, but I will give it a bash as this wasn’t my strong point at school. I believe it is caused by tiny molecules of gas in the air we have in the earths atmosphere scattering the suns light. The blue light is scattered in all directions more than other colours as it travels in smaller and shorter wave lengths hence why we see the sky as blue most of the time.

    • Photo: Samuel Vennin

      Samuel Vennin answered on 15 Jun 2018:


      Very interesting question and Jordan did a great job at answering it! I would just add that the sun’s light is the combination of lights representing ALL the colours of the spectrum. They propagates like waves in the ocean and each colour wave has a different period (length between two peaks). Because the blue waves have a much smaller period, they are scattered more than any other colour by air molecules in the sky. This video explains it:

Comments