why is the sky and ocean blue?
In: Physics
These are 2 different questions!
The sky is blue because of the way light is absorbed and refracted in the atmosphere. The longer wavelengths of light (red,yellow,orange) are less easily scattered by molecules in the air than the shorter ones(green,blue,purple). That means that the longer wavelengths just pass through the air more or less as beams, where as the shorter ones bounce around, hitting your eyes from all angles. That’s why the sunset and sunrise are red and orange, there’s more atmosphere for the light to pass through so more of the light is scattered.
It’s blue and not a mix of green/blue/purple because stars like our sun make WAY more blue light than green and purple. It’s there, but the blue washes it out.
As for the ocean, that’s simply the color of water. Water is transparent if you look through a small amount, but the more you look through, the more and more you notice the faint blue tint to it.
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