• Question: What Is the True Colour of the Sky?

    Asked by anon-193397 to Morwenna, Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 12 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      The sky can turn a multitude of colors such as red, orange, purple and yellow (especially near sunset or sunrise) when the light must pass through a much longer path (or optical depth) through the atmosphere.

    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

      So, if you think about the sky without having a person’s eye to look at it, I guess it would be clear? It only looks blue to us because of the way that our eyes interpret light.. I think.

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