I keep seeing the reason why sky is blue that blue scatters more is because blue light has less or shorter wavelength than the other colors but why does it need to be shorter wavelength for it to scatter more, what does it have to do with scattering light?
In: Chemistry
An example of Rayleigh scattering is when light passes through our atmosphere it polarizes (interacts with) oxygen and nitrogen molecules.
This polarization causes the light to scatter (go everywhere). The more energy that the light has, the more strongly it polarizes the oxygen and nitrogen molecules which means that it scatters more.
The shorter the wavelength of the light the more energy it has. This means that blue light (short wavelength, high energy) scatters more than red light (long wavelength, low energy). Our eyes then see the scattered blue light. Thus, our sky looks blue.
TLDR: Shorter wavelength light has more energy which means that it scatters more in our atmosphere due to Rayleigh scattering.
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