Eli5: why is the sky blue most of the day but red during sense and sunrise.
In: Physics
Theres two things in play here:
When the sun is high in the sky, the light is scattered by the air molecules in the atmosphere, but blue light is scattered more, so we see more of that color in the sky.
When the sun is low on the horizon, the light is passing through more of the atmosphere to reach your eye. So there’s more dust and smoke and pollution which absorbs the blue part of the light from reaching you, so you see more reds and yellows.
Don’t know where you come from but what’s this blue sky thing you refer to? Here it is always grey and leaking water 😣
Fun fact – due to the a slightly different application of the same basic principles u/cajunjoel mentions – on Mars the sky is [Red ](https://interestingengineering.com/science/nasa-scientist-yes-humans-can-one-day-live-on-mars)during the day and [Blue ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mars/comments/fje1on/the_sunrise_on_mars_at_domoni_crater/)during dawn and dusk.
At any given time, when sunlight hits the Earth, a certain portion of the light is scattered. The scattering effect acts somewhat like a prism, scattering more blue, indigo and violet directly down, while red, orange and yellow gets scattered toward the edges. If you are standing near the edge of sunlight as it hits the Earth, it means that it is either sunrise or sunset.
Latest Answers