This question may sounded simple, but it has been daunting adults to always stay

away from this question and also had been making a 7-years-old kids to frequently ask their
older family members. The search engine giant, Google, had also listed this question as one
of the worlds most asked question they have ever received through the search query made by
users across the world. As simple as the question it is, this natural phenomenon that we took
for granted in our life in fact has a very interesting explanations in which we can use these
explanations to cure our curiosity and understand on how the nature around us work together
in harmony, creating all those spectating and mind-boggling natural phenomenon that had
never fail to excite our curiosity-driven, answer-seeking human mind.
To tackle these questions, we first need to know the factors that causes the sky to get
its blue colour. There are 3 factors which causes the sky to get its colour, and one of them is
the light from the Sun itself. Sun, which is the nearest star to our planet, is an extremely
bright source of light. So bright that during the day time, all source of lights from other
celestial body in our universe that enters the Earths atmosphere were out shadowed by the
Suns super bright light, leaving Sun to be the only source of light in the sky during the day
time. The reason why the Sun is the brightest source of light in the sky is because the distance
of the Sun to our planet is much nearer than the distance of any light-radiating stars in the
space to our planet, thus the Sun is able to illuminates the Earth with huge amount of light
without letting the living things on Earth to wait for a long period of time (compare the time
taken for the light from Sun and from another nearest star to our planet, the Alpha Centauri
binary pair : 8.3 minutes vs 4.22 years).
The Sun radiates a wide spectrum of electromagnetic radiation to our planet,
including the visible spectrum, which is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that can
be detected by the human eyes. The electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is
called the visible light or simply light, which is responsible to light up our planet. While
the default colour of the visible light is white, it also consist of spectrum of different
wavelengths of light. Violet light has the shortest wavelength, which is in the range of 380 to
450 nm. On the other hand, red light has the longest wavelength, which is in the range of 620
to 750 nm.
So, if the colour of the sunlight is white, why dont the sky looks white in colour?
This is where the presence of the Earths atmosphere plays it roles. As we know, the
atmosphere of the Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by

Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation,
warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature
extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variations). The commonly known
atmospheric gas that is used by the life on Earth is called air. By volume, dry air contains
78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts
of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapour, on average around 1% at
sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. This indicates that the gas nitrogen and
oxygen are the most abundant gas in the Earths atmosphere.
So what does the composition of the gas in the Earths atmosphere has to do with the
colour of the sky? It is the composition of the gas in the Earths atmosphere that gives the
colour of the sky. For a long time, people had been mistakenly say that the sky is blue due to
the due to small particles of dust and droplets of water vapour in the atmosphere. Later
scientists realised that if this were true, there would be more variation of sky colour with
humidity or haze conditions than was actually observed, and thus, they concluded that the
molecules of the nitrogen and oxygen in the air are sufficient to account for the scattering.
The molecules of both of the most abundant gas in the atmosphere, which are the
oxygen and nitrogen gases, are very small. In fact, the size of the molecules for these gases
are smaller than the wavelength of the blue colour in the visible light spectrum. Because the
size of the molecules is small, the blue wavelength from the sunlight will more likely to hit
the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air. When the blue wavelength (or any shorter
wavelength) hits these molecules in the air, the blue light get scattered in every direction,
while the remaining colour wavelengths in the light continue to travel through the
atmosphere. So as we look in a direction of the sky away from the Sun, we see those
wavelengths that are bent the most. This process is known as Rayleigh scattering.
Rayleigh scattering, which was named after a British physicist, John William Strutt,
the 3rd Baron Rayleigh, is the dominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic
radiation by particles much smaller than its wavelength. The particles may be individual
atoms or molecules. It can occur when light travels through transparent solids and liquids, but
is most prominently seen in gases. According to Rayleigh's approximate scattering law, the
amount of scattering goes as the frequency of the light to the 4th power which means that the
shorter the wavelength, the higher the amount of scattering. He had also calculated the

scattering factor between blue light and red lights and concluded that blue light tends to get
scattered approximately 10 times more than red light.
Since there are plenty of nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air, blue lights and any
other light with shorter wavelength are scattered more efficient than any lights that has longer
wavelength. Referring back to Rayleighs approximate scattering law, compared to the blue
lights, violet lights has higher amount of scattering, as violet light has much shorter
wavelength than the wavelength of blue light (380nm vs 450nm). Taking account to this
reference, the sky itself is not blue in colour, but more towards violet. So, if the atmosphere
scatters violet light more efficient than the blue light in the light spectrum, why dont the sky
looks purplish? This is where the factors that we are a human being takes place.
Humans, and many other creatures in the world, rely with their eyes to perceive
visions in order to see the world. Vision begins when light rays are reflected off an object and
enter the eyes through the cornea, the transparent outer covering of the eye. The cornea bends
or refracts the rays that pass through a round hole called the pupil. The iris, or coloured
portion of the eye that surrounds the pupil, opens and closes (making the pupil bigger or
smaller) to regulate the amount of light passing through. The light rays then pass through the
lens, which actually changes shape so it can further bend the rays and focus them on the
retina at the back of the eye. The retina is a thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye that
contains millions of tiny light-sensing nerve cells called rods and cones, which are named for
their distinct shapes. Cones are concentrated in the centre of the retina, in an area called the
macula. In bright light conditions, cones provide clear, shard central vision and detect colours
and fine details. Rods are located outside the macula and extend all the way to the outer edge
of the retina. They provide peripheral or side vision. Rods also allow the eyes to detect
motion and help us see in dim light and at night. These cells in the retina convert the light
into electrical impulses. The optic nerve sends these impulses to the brain where an image is
produced.
To see the colours of a coloured objects, the objects itself should be illuminated with
enough lights, which causes the object to absorb certain wavelengths of light, and in return, to
also reflects certain wavelengths of light. The reflected wavelength will then need to travel
into our eyes, reaching the retina, where the light reflected will hit the cones in the retina. We
also know that the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the air scatters blue and violet
wavelength in the air, and the sky should looks violet in colour. But humans eyes are most

sensitive to blue, red, and green. So humans eyes are naturally more inclined to respond to
blue over violet. Also important is that the sun doesnt put out light at the same intensity at
all wavelengths of the spectrum. In addition to this less amount, some of the violet also gets
absorbed in the upper atmosphere; so not as much of it gets to humans eyes. So it turns out
more or less a combination of these three things makes it so we see the sky as blue instead of
violet or blueish/violet. It is interesting to note however, that humans eyes are picking up
some of the violet and indigo being scattered. Without this, we would in fact see the sky as
more of a blueish green. This is because the green cones in humans eyes respond to the
small amounts of scattered yellow light wavelengths to some extent while our eyes red cones
respond to the indigo/violet somewhat which balances things out a bit and so we only
perceive the blue being scattered.
Besides, the position of the Sun during the day also influence the colour of the sky.
During the day time, when the Sun is locate above us, the light from the Sun itself does not
travel directly into our eyes, as this may permanently damage our vision, and render us to be
blind. Instead, we see the blue lights that was scattered by the atmosphere, and since any light
that was not scattered by the atmosphere keeps on travelling in straight line, the light that has
not been scattered will never reach our eyes since the path of the light has not been bent by
anything until it reflects (or ultimately absorbed) by any object that it will illuminate later.
What happened to the sunlight during the sunset? How did the sky gets its beautiful,
magnificent shades of red, orange and yellow while the atmosphere scatters blue and violet
light more efficient than any light which has longer wavelengths than blue? During the
sunset, and the sunrise, the Sun still radiates the same white light to our planet. But, during
this time, the position of the Sun relative to the horizon is lower than the position of the Sun
during the noon, which obviously located directly on top of us. The position is so low, that at
one moment during the time, we could see the Sun itself without tilting our head upwards or
downwards; just perfectly zero degree and we could still see the Sun clearly, yet it is not
recommended to look directly into the Sun without wearing any protectors for the eyes.
Since the position of the Sun relative to the horizon is low, the white light from the
Sun itself has to travel for a longer distance through the atmosphere compared when the Sun
is located on top of our head. This change in travel distance causes more blue lights to be
scattered around, thus leaving only the red and yellow light when it reaches our eyes. During
sunset hours, the light passing through our atmosphere to our eyes tends to be most

concentrated with red and orange frequencies of light. For this reason, the sunsets have a
reddish-orange hue.
The effect of a red sunset becomes more pronounced if the atmosphere contains more
and more particles. The presence of aerosols, the solid or liquid particles suspended in the air
that originate from both natural processes and human activity, also enhances the red hues of
the sunset even more. Natural aerosols come from forest fires, mineral dust kicked up by
sandstorms, sea spray and volcanic eruptions, while man-made aerosols come from the soot
emitted by internal combustion engines in cars and trucks. The particles suspended in the
Earths atmosphere scatters radiations, removing the blue and violet light in the light
spectrum and enhances the red light, thus creating a magnificent sunsets, yet creating some
serious impacts and problems to the environment. Even though it is clearly that aerosols
could bring potential impacts to the environment, the brilliant sunsets it causes had also
inspired some artist who had devoted their life in the world of arts. For example, in 1883, the
eruption of the Krakatoa in Indonesia had released a huge amount of natural aerosols into the
atmosphere, causing brilliant sunsets to appear all over the world. One of these sunsets had
inspired the painting known as The Scream, by a Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch.
As mentioned previously, the position of the Sun relative to the horizon also influence
the colour of the sky. As we know, the blue colour of the sky that we saw are just the blue
lights from the full white light spectrum of the sunlight that were scattered in many
directions, leaving the red and any other lights that has not been scattered yet to continue
travelling the atmosphere. During the mid-day, we cant see the red and yellow lights from
the Sun, since these lights travel in a straight line and not directly into our eyes. But during
the sunset and sunrise, as the position of the Sun is low and close to the horizon, the red and
yellow lights from the Sun could travel directly into our eyes. Also, if we turn our self
around, back facing the Sun, we could the sky opposite from the sunset itself to possess a
beautiful shades of blue, which also caused by the scattering of the blue light from the white
light of the sunlight.
Overall, the wonderful yet unique natural phenomenon that is constantly happening in
this planet had never failed to impress and amaze us. To realize that even a small particle,
when in huge quantity or volume, could bring significant changes to the whole appearance of
the sky is an astounding truth that we always take for granted in our lives. The way how
everything is organized in a way that every inch of the measurements are perfectly placed in

its optimum default value in order to support life on Earth is something for us human should
appreciate, despite the reality that we still havent know how this arrangement were defined
for us. The universe, even though is a still large mysteries for us, human to figure out, but
whatever that makes it very mysterious had also made our universe, especially our home
planet, the Earth, to be much more beautiful. We, as a human should never stop from learning
all that happens in the surrounding, as whatever that happens has its own reasons.

(2541 Words)

References
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(Blue Sky and Rayleigh scattering, 2014) - http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html
(Why the Sky is blue and Sunsets red, 2010) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEB6uxtxyE
(Blue Skies Only In the Eye of the Beholder, 2005) http://www.livescience.com/320-blueskies-eye-beholder.html
(Why does the ocean appear blue? Is it because it reflects the color of the sky? , 1999) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-the-ocean-appear/
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(World's Most Asked Questions: Why is the Sky Blue? , 2014) http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/
(Why is the Sun Yellow and the Sky Blue? , 2014) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=NafbGOQBlQs
(Why Is The Sky Blue? , 2013) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0996ts017U
(How your eyes work? , 2014) - http://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/resources-forteachers/how-your-eyes-work?sso=y
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(Fact or Fiction? : Smog Creates Beautiful Sunsets, 2007) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-smog-creates-beautiful-sunsets/
(Blue Skies and Red Sunsets, 2015) - http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/Lesson2/Blue-Skies-and-Red-Sunsets