Nazey McKey, of Columbus: Ohio for the question:

What makes s the sky blue ?

The beautiful blue of the sky is closely related to the brilliant colors of the rainbows the glowing colors that sometimes decorate an oily puddle and the bright sparkles that we sometimes see through our tears. fill these displays of color ire caused by the splitting of the radiant white light of the sun.

For the light that pours out from our glorious sun is actually a blend of all the colors we see in a rainbow, on an oily puddle or through tears and raindrops. This blend of white light speeds out from the sun at n speed of 186,000 miles n second. In about eight and a half minutes just two billionths of the total output of the great sun has reached our earth. Traveling through empty space it has m©t no object to bend its brilliant rays.

But as soon as the sunlight reaches even a minute particle of dust its rays are bent, its colors separated and scattered. This is because the different colors of light a.re of different lengths just as your favorite radio channels are on different wave lengths, The shorter waves of blue and violet color are bent mast. The long rays of red and orange are bent least.

A good way to watch this split up of the colors of light is with a prism   a triangular shaped glass rod, Each color is forced to bend at its own special angle as it passes through the prism. You can hold the prism so that the colors of the rainbow fall upon a white wall, The longer rays bending at a wider angle, appear at the top. The shorter rays, bending at a sharper angle are at the bottom.

Sunlight strikes the earth's atmosphere many, many miles before: it reaches the ground. Lad our gauzy looking atmosphere is just teeming with minute particles of dust, atoms of gas and molecules of water vapor, Before it reaches your the sunlight has passed through billions and billions of these minute objects. They have done their work on the shorter blue and violet rays of the light, bent them and scattered them in all directions. When you look up at the noon sky on a clear day, you are gazing through billions of scattered blue light rays w the sky above is blue.

As the sun sinks from overhead, its rays pierce the atmosphere at a slant. They must now pass through a greater thickness of specks and air particles, So  still more of the gaudy colors are split and scattered from the sunlight, showy sunset can display all the colors of lights all the colors of the rainbow,