Youtube why is the sky blue

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For the best experience using Mystery Science, we recommend upgrading to one of the following browsers: Chrome recommended Firefox Safari Microsoft Edge. Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Video transcript - Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue?

Why is it that the sun, which is actually white in color, looks yellow to us? Why does the sunlight usually look yellow to us?

And why is it that the sunrise or the sunsets are usually red in color? Well, the short answer for this is because the molecules of our atmosphere, like the nitrogen molecules or the oxygen molecules, tend to scatter blue light more than red. So let's explore this in a little bit more detail.

We've talked about scattering of light in previous videos. Basically, when light hits a tiny particle, it reflects light in all the direction, and that's what we call a scattering. When this scattered light enters our eyes, we see that particle glowing the same color that it ends up scattering.

So if it scatters, let's say yellow light, then the particle will glow yellow to us. Now, the important thing is that the molecules of our atmosphere don't scatter all the colors of light equally. Now do you understand why that's a little complicated? Because the physics of scattering is a little bit complicated. But in short, what's happening is that you see, our white light is actually made up of seven colors: "VIBGYOR," the seven colors of the rainbow. The reason we even see these different colors, is actually because light is a wave, or it can be thought of as a wave, like a wave on a string.

And then if you were to look at these waves, then it turns out that the shorter wavelength then to hit our eyes, we perceive that as violet. The longer wavelength then to hit our eyes, we tend to perceive it as red. So as the wavelength becomes longer, the color changes from violet towards the red. And when we do the physics of scattering, it turns out that when we're dealing with particles of the atmosphere which are much smaller than the wavelength of light, they always tend to scatter the shorter wavelength more compared to the longer wavelength.

We're now going to see why that happens. As I said, that's a little difficult, well that's not little, that's actually pretty complicated.

But it turns out that the shorter wavelength, which we see as violet, so this shorter wavelength, let's write that down somewhere over here. So this shorter wavelength scatters the most, and the longer red wavelength scatters the least. Therefore, if white light were to come and hit one of these atmospheric molecules, then they would tend to scatter blue light much more than the red light because blue has a shorter wavelength, somewhere over here, compared to the red. Now I'm pretty sure we might be wondering, "Why blue?

Why not the violet itself? Well, it turns out that the sun doesn't produce enough of violet in the first place. So there isn't much violet light in the incoming sunlight, and therefore there won't be much violet in the scattered light. Another reason why we don't see violet is because our eyes turn out to be not so sensitive to violet at all.

Combined with these results, we don't tend to see violet, but we tend to see this indigo blue, which together we tend to usually call it as blue. So that's the blue light that gets scattered the most, and therefore the atmospheric molecules tend to glow, they tend to glow blue in color, when seen from any direction. Now we are ready to answer all of our questions.

So let's get rid of these pictures. First, let's look at what we would have seen if there wasn't an atmosphere. So let's say it's the daytime, that means the sun is right above us. During the daytime, the Martian sky takes on an orange or reddish color.

But as the Sun sets, the sky around the Sun begins to take on a blue-gray tone. The top image shows the orange-colored Martian sky during the daytime and the bottom image shows the blue-tinted sky at sunset.

Our World: Sunsets and Atmospheres. Why Is the Sky Blue? The Short Answer:. Blue light is scattered more than the other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. Explore some more! How do hurricanes form? How does GPS work? What is a solar eclipse?

If you liked this, you may like: Earth's Atmosphere. How Do Hurricanes Form?