The Color of Sky: Why Does it Look Blue or Red?

In this day and age, the fast-paced life, financial crisis, and even social media are causing many individuals to feel exceptionally stressed.

Numerous studies have proven that having some time to unplug and be with nature, to experience the outdoors plainly, positively affects your physical and mental health. Moreso, by openly staring at the sky, the calmness and healing it gives are remarkable!

Research suggests that the curbed green light improves dopamine production in the brain and gives a calming feeling. Likewise, the blue sky causes a gentle type of sensory deprivation that will assist them with turning their attention inward and diverting them from everyday stress.

Yet, the sky, before even knowing these benefits, you can freely stare and believe in its beauty. The rainbows, brilliant sun, orange new moon, and stars make the sky amazingly beautiful. In the sky, you can disguise yourself in beauty, hope, and peace.

Fun Fact

In Color Psychology…

The effects of the color blue on human behavior are:

Blue brings to mind sensations of tranquility or peacefulness. It is frequently depicted as quiet, serene, secure, and orderly.
Blue is frequently seen as an indication of stability and unwavering quality. Businesses that need to extend an image of security usually use blue in their ad and marketing campaigns. Now you know why Facebook is blue.

One key point to keep in mind is that the feelings caused by specific colors are not general. Cultural differences also assume a part in how individuals see color. Individual encounters additionally significantly affect the moods that colors can make.

Now that you find peace in knowing how calming and serene staring at the sky is, have you ever wondered why the color is blue or red?

Why is the Sky Blue and Red?

Your curiosity as to why the sky is blue and red is now growing in you! But before delving deeper into why the sky has such colors, it is significant to know the answers to the questions below.

What kind of light does the sun produce?

The sun produces white light, composed of light of all colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are the colors that make up a rainbow. Light is a wave, and every color has various frequencies and wavelengths. Violet, indigo, and blue have more limited wavelengths (and higher frequency), and orange and red have longer wavelengths (and more limited frequencies).

What is the atmosphere made of?

The atmosphere is a combination of gas molecules, water droplets, and dust that encompasses the Earth. Dust particles and gas molecules cause light to scatter. The more dust and gas particles in the air, the more the light will scatter.

What makes us see color?

Particles in the air can scatter white light. Since blue light has a high frequency and a short wavelength, it will scatter multiple times more than longer light like orange and red.

Why is the sky blue?

Provided that the air is transparent and the sunlight is colorless, why does the sky look blue? What's more, for what reason does the sky become red at sunset and dawn?

Blue and red are two parts of the light. Blue light has a short wavelength, while the wavelength of red is long. The shorter the wavelength, the more the light scattered further. (Violet light, which has a significantly more limited wavelength, can't be seen since the human eye isn't susceptible to violet light.) To add, the Blue light is heavily scattered.

Why is the sky red?

Throughout the day, the sky looks blue on account of this heavy scattering. Light goes through the atmosphere for a more extended period at sunset and dawn, scattering blue light waves. With their more extended wavelengths, red and orange overshadow because they scatter less, which is why the sky appears red early in the day and when the sun is setting.

So to speak, as the sun gets lower in the sky, its light goes through a greater amount of the atmosphere to reach you. Considerably a greater amount of the blue and violet light is scattered, allowing the reds and yellows to go straight through to your eyes without all that opposition from the blues.

What causes the sky to appear in different colors?

The sky can likewise seem to be multiple colors based on the situation of the sun. More molecules and particles in spaces of the atmosphere like dust and smoke particles can cause bright profound orange and red sunsets because of the scattering of low-frequency light. Cities with great levels of pollution will, in general, have exceptionally colorful sunsets.

After sunset, the reddened evening sunlight enlightens tiny aerosols in higher altitudes of 10 km to 20 km above the ground, in the lower stratosphere. This rosy light joins with scattered blue light to give a purplish shade. Scattering by tiny aerosol particles adds to the reddish-purple shade of the late evening sky.

Why does scattering matter?

What amount of the sun's light gets bounced around in Earth's atmosphere, and what amount gets reflected into space? What amount of light gets absorbed by land and water, asphalt freeways, and sunburned surfers? What amount of light water and clouds reflect into space? So, why do these matter?

Sunlight delivers the energy that heats Earth and powers all life on Earth. Our climate is influenced by how sunlight is scattered, reflected into space, or consumed by forests, deserts, snow-and ice-covered surfaces, various kinds of clouds, smoke from forest fires, and different pollutants present all around.

Similarly, as Earth's atmosphere curves and scatters light that goes through it from the sun to the surface, the atmosphere influences light reflecting off the surface back into space.

That is why satellites can perform remote sensing from space and uncover an extraordinary arrangement about the surface and the atmosphere. Instruments on satellites like the GOES can measure the power of the light of various wavelengths. Examining that data, atmospheric scientists discover surface and atmospheric temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, water vapor, pollutants, ozone, and other trace gases.

GOES uses our atmosphere's effect on light to assist us in forecasting the climate and understand and take care of our planet.

Light Scattering

Light contains waves. When observing water waves, if plane ripples hit an obstacle bigger than their wavelength, you will notice them twisting around the edge of the obstacle. Light waves show a similar occurrence, called light diffraction when they twist around an obstruction bigger than their wavelength. While, when these waves of light crash into particles and molecules less than their wavelengths in the atmosphere, they influence the particles and molecules to "relay" their wave movement, emanating light in a similar wavelength into the encompassing air.

Fun Facts About the Sky

Now, you already have a decent knowledge of why the sky is blue and that it's red when it's dusk and dawn. It is but fitting to learn some fascinating facts about the sky you never even knew existed!

Clouds are heavy.

They may seem to float effortlessly. However, clouds can contain millions of massive loads of water. You can't just imagine!

Nature has its extraordinary light display called Aurora.

Aurora is a natural light display named after the Roman goddess of the aurora, Aurora. You can find out with regards to the science behind this wonder here. Likewise, you can witness it firsthand in Iceland.

The moon has dancing dust.

Dust, in general, tends to float over the moon, particularly during dawn and dusk. Scientists aren't 100% certain why this happens, so you can prefer to think the moon is simply moving up there and living it up.

You're looking at history when you gaze at the stars.

It requires hundreds, thousands, and now and then millions of years for the light from far off stars to reach us.

There's a star that exactly shines bright like a diamond because it is one.

Astronomers found a star made entirely of diamonds in 2004. They named it Lucy, in honor of The Beatles. It's more than 2,400 miles across and is made out of 10 billion trillion carats. Sadly, it's 50 light-years from Earth.

Nearly every star you see is bigger and brighter than our sun.

Of the brightest 50 stars visible to the human eye from Earth, Alpha Centauri is the least bright however is even more than 1.5 times more glowing than the sun.

When you salute the sun, you're saluting a lot of energy.

The energy delivered from the sun is powerful to the point that consistently its core releases what could be compared to 100 billion atomic bombs. That is a ton of good energy.

← Older Post Newer Post →