)“Why is the sky blue?” is a perennial question of young children. It is also somewhat notorious for producing incorrect or incomplete answers, even from fairly credible sources. The typical answer for why ‘x’ is whatever color it is has to due with the wavelengths of light it absorbs. What we see is what is not absorbed but instead reflected, so if an object absorbs light from the red end of the spectrum it will look more blue, and vice versa. The sky appears blue for a different reason, though. Some white light from the sun not headed directly to our eyes gets deflected or scattered from its straight line path and gets redirected towards us; blue light is more easily redirected and so we see more of it than other colors. As it happens, there is still yet another way to look blue, and a common berry is the latest to be found using that route.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: It’s Not That Easy Being Blue
