Finding Peace In The Skies.

 

Ever find yourself gazing out to the sky and thinking, “Man… this blue sky sure fills me up with tranquillity and peace.”? If it’s a yes, then I can vouch for the fact that you’ve also wondered what makes our sky fill up with the colour of serenity and truth. I mean, does it not strike you as odd that, out of all the colours that exist in our colorful universe, the sky’s colour is blue? Wanna know why? Schools in Dehradun give you the exact reason with a fun story. Keep Reading to find out!

Well, there’s actually a pretty simple scientific reason behind the sky’s colour. To explain the process better, here’s a fun little story:

So, a long, long time ago, way before the dawn of living-organisms, when the Earth was just a new-born, it felt extremely lonely, lost, and confused! After all, there was no source of light to guide its path! The old and wise Sun, taking pity on the little kid, decided to direct its light towards Earth. When the light finally reached Earth a few minutes later, the various gasses and particles present in the air scattered the light, filling the Earth with brightness, and Earth no longer felt lonely and lost!

Now, when the sunlight hits a particle, it actually scatters itself into various colours, namely, the colours of VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red). And that is exactly what happened when the light reached Earth. Upon scattering of sunlight, was the sky filled up with colors! Now, you may be wondering, if the scattered light contains all the colours of VIBGYOR, why is blue the only visible colour? 

You see, the atmosphere of Earth scatters the blue colour from the sunlight way more than the other colours, which is the reason why blue is the only colour that is visible to the naked eyes!

But that begs the question; why do we see red during sunsets?

Actually, after having its sunlight enter the atmosphere for an entire day, and after the continuous scattering of the blue light, the only lights left in the atmosphere are red, yellow and a little bit of orange, which is the reason why sunsets cause the sky to appear red. Another interesting fact is how the more polluted the air is around you, the deeper the red colour in the sky will be. Though, there is one thing that may be bugging a lot of people; why isn’t the sky actually violet or indigo? Isn’t violet supposed to be the most scattered colour? After all, it does come first in the VIBGYOR cycle! Well, I have an answer for that too!

See, in reality, the colour violet is in fact scattered the most in our sky, but most of it is actually absorbed by our atmosphere! The same goes for indigo, only to a lesser extent. Another contributing factor is how our eyes are actually less perceptive to violet and indigo. The major colours that are perceivable by the eye are red, blue, and green. When we look up to the sky, the one colour our eyes react the most to, as you may have guessed already, is blue because it scatters itself way more than red and green. However, our eyes also react to violet and indigo a little bit, which is why, if you ever noticed, the sky never appears as a complete blue.

In case you’re wondering what the sky looks like on other planets, NASA actually researched the sky colour on Mars and found some really interesting facts! The sky colour’s changes on Mars are actually the polar opposite to that of Earth’s! In contrast to the blue colour that we see in our sky, Mars actually carries an orangish-red hue throughout the day, and as the night falls, assumes a dark-blue colour! Interesting isn’t it?!

With all said and done, though, one thing is definitely clear; our sky is one of the most peaceful and beautiful things to look at!