Today I learned that the sky isn't blue and the sun isn't yellow. The sky is actually black and the sun is white. It's only because we have an atmosphere (which is made of gas molecules and dust) that we see colors. Because there's no air in space, there's nothing for the light to bounce off.
FTA:
On a clear sunny day, the sky above us looks bright blue. In the evening, the sunset puts on a brilliant show of reds, pinks and oranges. Why is the sky blue? What makes the sunset red?
To answer these questions, we must learn about light, and the Earth's atmosphere...
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...
On Earth, the sun appears yellow. If you were out in space, or on the moon, the sun would look white.
In space, there is no atmosphere to scatter the sun's light. On Earth, some of the shorter wavelength light (the blues and violets) are removed from the direct rays of the sun by scattering. The remaining colors together appear yellow.
What did you learn today?
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Nov 16, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=384
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