Why the sky is blue? Detailed answer

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Why the sky is blue? Detailed answer

Big encyclopedia for children and adults

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Why the sky is blue?

There are several possible explanations. The air surrounding the Earth is a mixture of gases: nitrogen, oxygen, argon and others. The atmosphere also contains water vapor and ice crystals. Dust and other small particles are suspended in the air. The ozone layer is in the upper atmosphere. Could this be the reason? Some scientists believed that ozone and water molecules absorb red rays and transmit blue ones. But it turned out that there simply wasn’t enough ozone and water in the atmosphere to color the sky blue.

In 1869, Englishman John Tyndall suggested that dust and other particles scatter light. Blue light is the least scattered and passes through layers of such particles to reach the Earth's surface. In his laboratory, he created a model of smog and illuminated it with a bright white beam. The smog turned deep blue.

Tyndall decided that if the air were absolutely pure, then nothing would scatter the light, and we could admire the bright white sky.

Lord Rayleigh also supported this idea, but not for long. In 1899, he published his explanation: it is air, not dust or smoke, that turns the sky blue.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why do flowers have a smell and color?

It's strange, but often we admire the "flowers" of some plant, not knowing that these are not flowers at all! If we believe that flowers are something brightly colored that has grown on a plant, then we are deeply mistaken.

For example, the "petals" of a dogwood flower that bloom in the spring are not petals at all.

On the other hand, the bearded tassels at the tip of the grass are flowers! An unripe ear of corn is also a flower. Botanists define a flower as a part of a plant intended to produce pollen or seeds, or both. Only plants that reproduce by seed have flowers. And only those parts of the plant that are directly related to the formation and maturation of seeds can be considered as belonging to the flowers.

Why do flowers smell? Flowers are scented by the presence of certain oils on the petals. These oils are produced by the plant and are an integral part of its growth. Such oils have a complex structure. Under certain conditions, this structure decomposes and forms a volatile oil, which evaporates quickly. When this happens, we smell the scent that the flower gives off.

The different smells that flowers give off depend on the chemical elements of the volatile oils, and their combination creates different scents. Incidentally, these same oils are present not only in plant flowers, but also in leaves, bark, roots, fruits, and seeds. For example, these oils in lemon and orange are in the fruits, in almonds in the seeds, in cinnamon in the bark, and so on.

Why do flowers have color? "Anthocyanin" - the so-called pigments that give colors red, lilac, blue, purple and other shades. These pigments are dissolved by the juice of the flowers. Other colors, such as yellow, orange, green, are formed due to other pigments. These include chlorophyll, carotene and others. These pigments have different chemical structures.

So, the coloring of flowers depends on the presence of pigments "anthocyanins" and "plastids". Some pigments provide one color, others another.

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Scientists at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have been able to create a device that will solve two problems on our planet at once: to reproduce electricity from sunlight and to start water purification.

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