• Question: Hi, my name is sb28 nice to meet you Charli. I am in year six and I realy like science.Why is the sky blue ?

    Asked by to Charli on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Charlotte Flavell

      Charlotte Flavell answered on 16 Jun 2014:


      Hi sb28,

      Nice to meet you too! I am very happy to hear that you like science – I think it’s pretty great as well 🙂

      The sky is blue because the although the light that we see doesn’t appear to be coloured, it is actually made up of lots of colours.

      When sunlight passes through the atmosphere, it bounces off the molecules in the air, scattering the light, making it look blue. If different molecules were in the air, the light would bounce differently, leading to a different colours. This is why sometimes the sky appears pink or orange – pollution in the air makes the light scatter differently.

      Rainbows are created in a similar way – when sunlight passes through water droplets, the light is scattered in such a way that you can see all the colours in the form of a rainbow.

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