Is the sky blue?

Is the Sky blue?


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Ethyl

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The blue color of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air.


However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

Or so I learned...
 

col1974

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what mercurial bliss said plus

the increasing depth of atmosphere that occurs at dusk brings around a predominant scattering of red / orange wavelengths within white light toward the observer making the sky apear the colour it does.
Atmospheric dust and other pollutants have a broadly similar effect.
Is that about right mercurial?
 

Ethyl

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what mercurial bliss said plus

the increasing depth of atmosphere that occurs at dusk brings around a predominant scattering of red / orange wavelengths within white light toward the observer making the sky apear the colour it does.
Atmospheric dust and other pollutants have a broadly similar effect.
Is that about right mercurial?

Yep, unless my old science textbook was wrong.
 

Ethyl

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What we should really be asking is this: is blue blue?




.......ahhhhhh, do you see?


"The sensation of blue is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy in the wavelength range of about 440–490 nm. Blue is considered to be one of the three primary additive colours in the RGB system; blue light has the shortest wavelength range of the three additive primary colours. The English language commonly uses "blue" to refer to any colour from navy blue to cyan.
The complementary colour of blue in colour science is yellow (on the HSV colour wheel), while in art the complementary colour to blue is considered to be orange (based on the Munsell colour wheel)."



-Wikipedia

Blue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

homelessmandril

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"The sensation of blue is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy in the wavelength range of about 440–490 nm. Blue is considered to be one of the three primary additive colours in the RGB system; blue light has the shortest wavelength range of the three additive primary colours. The English language commonly uses "blue" to refer to any colour from navy blue to cyan.
The complementary colour of blue in colour science is yellow (on the HSV colour wheel), while in art the complementary colour to blue is considered to be orange (based on the Munsell colour wheel)."



-Wikipedia

Blue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Sorry, even Wikipedia isn't authoritative enough to defy the impossibility of objective truth :biggrin1:

And besides, is wikipedia wikipedia?




.....ahhhhhh, do you see?
 

ManlyBanisters

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They went on forever
And they -- when I
We lived in Arizona
And the skies always had little fluffy clouds
And they were long and clear
And there were lots of stars, at night
And when it rained it would all turn
It -- they were beautiful
The most beautiful skies as a matter of fact
The sunsets were purple and red
And yellow and on fire
And the clouds would catch the colors everywhere
That's -- it's neat
Because I used to look at them all the time
When I was little
You don't see that
You might still see them in the desert