Answer:
The scattering caused by these tiny air molecules (known as Rayleigh scattering) increases as the wavelength of light decreases. Violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths and red light has the longest. Therefore, blue light is scattered more than red light and the sky appears blue during the day.
Step-by-step explanation:
The sky is blue because of a process called scattering. When sunlight passes through the Earth's atmosphere, the shorter, blue wavelengths of light are scattered more than the longer, red wavelengths. This makes the blue light reach our eyes from all directions, giving the sky its blue color.
The reason why the sky appears blue is due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. When sunlight enters the Earth's atmosphere, it contains all the colors of the visible light spectrum, which includes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
As the sunlight travels through the atmosphere, it encounters tiny particles such as molecules and small dust particles. These particles are much smaller than the wavelength of light, so they scatter the light in different directions. However, the amount of scattering varies depending on the wavelength of light.
The blue light, with its shorter wavelength, is scattered much more than the other colors. In fact, blue light is scattered about 16 times more than red light. This is because the wavelength of blue light is approximately half the wavelength of red light.
When we look at the sky, we see the scattered blue light because it is scattered in all directions by the particles in the atmosphere. As a result, our eyes perceive the sky as blue.
It's important to note that this scattering effect is more pronounced in the Earth's atmosphere during the daytime. At sunrise or sunset, when the sun is lower in the sky, the sunlight has to pass through a larger portion of the atmosphere, causing the blue light to scatter even more and creating the vibrant hues of red, orange, and pink that we often see during those times.