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The blue sky spectrum contains light at all visible wavelengths with a broad maximum around 450–485 nm, the wavelengths of the color blue. Diffuse sky radiation is solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or particulates in the atmosphere.
The Rayleigh sky model describes the observed polarization pattern of the daytime sky. Within the atmosphere, Rayleigh scattering of light by air molecules, water, dust, and aerosols causes the sky's light to have a defined polarization pattern. The same elastic scattering processes cause the sky to be blue.
Rayleigh scattering causes the blue color of the daytime sky and the reddening of the Sun at sunset. Rayleigh scattering (/ ˈ r eɪ l i / RAY-lee) is the scattering or deflection of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles with a size much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.
This is why the sky looks blue; you are seeing scattered blue light. This is also why sunsets are red. Because the Sun is close to the horizon, the Sun's rays pass through more atmosphere than normal before reaching your eye. Much of the blue light has been scattered out, leaving the red light in a sunset.
The red light reaches the observer's eye, whereas the blue light is scattered out of the line of sight. Other colours in the sky, such as glowing skies at dusk and dawn. These are from additional particulate matter in the sky that scatter different colors at different angles. Halos, afterglows, coronas, polar stratospheric clouds, and sun dogs.
Earth appears as a blue dot in the photograph primarily because of Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in its atmosphere. In Earth's air, short-wavelength visible light such as blue light is scattered to a greater extent than longer wavelength light such as red light, which is the reason why the sky appears blue from Earth.
Reflection nebula are usually blue because the scattering is more efficient for blue light than red (this is the same scattering process that gives us blue skies and red sunsets). Reflection nebulae and emission nebulae are often seen together and are sometimes both referred to as diffuse nebulae. Some 500 reflection nebulae are known.
Because the shorter wavelengths are the blue wavelengths, this gives rise to a blue hue in the light that comes out of the eye. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] The blue iris is an example of a structural color because it relies only on the interference of light through the turbid medium to generate the color.