• Question: If the sun reflects and effects the colour of the sea, why is it blue?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      The sea is blue because of several reasons.

      First of all, it helps to understand why the sky appears blue. This is because when sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere, it’s scattered by gas particles. Visible light is made of different colours which have different wavelengths (you may have seen this when shining lights through a prism). Blue light travels in shorter wavelengths than other colours so is scattered more, which is why the sky looks blue.

      The sea appears blue partly because it reflects the sky but the major reason is due to blue wavelengths scattering the most, as they do in the sky.

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