The world explained to children: Why is the sky blue?
Children are naturally curious. They often ask us questions about how something works or is created – and they want to know all the background information. But when it comes to some questions, even we parents sometimes break out in a sweat. One of the typical children’s questions is often: Mom, Dad, why is the sky actually blue? We tell you!
The typical children’s question “Why is the sky blue?” is not that easy to answer. But here we show you the explanation for the tricky question so that you can answer your child’s questions.
Why is the sky blue?
This is how the blue of the sky is created: The light of the sun shines in all the colors of the rainbow, i.e. in blue, red, yellow and so on. These are called spectral colors. These colors mix together to form white light.
These rays of the sun pass through the earth’s atmosphere, which is made up of innumerable invisible particles (molecules). The individual colors behave very differently, since each has its own wavelength, for example blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light. The shorter the wavelength, the more the light is scattered. This means that blue light is scattered more than red light. So if we look into the cloud-free, clear sky, we only see the blue light, as this is strongly scattered.
If there is a lot of water and dust in the atmosphere, the long-wave components in the light are also scattered to a greater extent. The sky appears hazy or milky. The sky no longer appears blue, but rather white.