The Sky and Ocean are Blue for Different Reasons? Cool!
I could try to explain it all, but I’m tired and need to go to bed early tonight, so please click through to Ethan Siegel ‘s article to learn why the sky and ocean are both blue and why they have nothing to do with each other’s color.
#todayilearned (a hashtag I had to steal from Yonatan Zunger ‘s Collection: https://plus.google.com/b/109763455016639820533/collection/ktW_P)
Originally shared by Ethan Siegel
“But if it were only that the ocean reflects the sky, we wouldn’t expect to see these varying shades of blue as we head to deeper and deeper waters. In fact, if you took a photograph underwater in natural light, without any artificial light sources, you would notice — if you went to even a modest depth — that literally everything would take on a bluish hue.”
If you look at Earth from space, you’ll find that we’re a blue planet. You might chalk that up to the fact that our sky is blue, the sky is the outermost layer of our planet, and hence the planet appears blue. But then why do the continents and clouds appear to be such different colors, and why is the “blue” of the ocean such a different shade from the sky we see? It’s because the “blue” we see from space — or the blue we see from looking at the ocean — actually has nothing to do with the contents of our atmosphere! If you ever thought the ocean was blue because it reflects the sky, you’ve got to read this.
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/why-is-earth-blue-6f017e6b6720
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