The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.
Sunlight, which is made up of all different colors, travels in waves. Some of these waves are longer, and some are shorter. Blue light has shorter, smaller waves compared to colors like red and orange.
Sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
But here’s something interesting: when the sun is setting or rising, the sky can look red or orange, right?
That’s because the sun is lower in the sky, and its light has to travel through more air to reach us. By the time it gets to us, the blue light has been scattered out, and the longer waves of reds and oranges are what we see.
Isn’t it beautiful.