this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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I liked a version of this (I believe) XKCD said once.
A perfectly valid response to the question, "why is the sky blue?" is simply, "because air is blue."
Yes, you can give a lot of explanation about refractive index and Rayleigh scattering. But all this does is provide details of how light interacts with air. And the same reason anything is the color that it is is due to the way it reflects, transmits, or absorbs light. You're citing real scientific principles, but you're ultimately just explaining why air is blue.
Better question: "Why is the sky usually blue but sometimes red?"
Talking specifically about sunsets, not apocalyptic wildfire smoke
Incidentally it's the same reason between a sunset and smoke - more scattering.
It's a very good relevant XKCD.
The title text is more directly applicable: If you ask "why are leaves green?" the usual answer is "because they're full of chlorophyll, and chlorophyll is green," even though "why does chlorophyll scatter green light?" is a great question too.
"Don't breathe air, it has sharks in it! BLUE HAS SHARKS IN IT!" -The funny purple man
"BLUEBERRIES ARE FUCKING PURPLE!"
First if all: don't name your kid brayden.
???
It's a two minute comedy bit.
https://youtu.be/hc73pgg5RGU?is=2ZxFKDcomzbk5ujm
But it's an incomplete answer.
"air is invisible at short distances, blue at longer distances, and takes on red green and orange at sunset" would be better
The same is true for all colors. Tell me the color of a single atom.
Yes, air can be colors other than blue at unusual light conditions, like sunset. But the same is true for any material.
You're stuck on the urge to explain. You call "the air is blue" incomplete. But all answers are incomplete. When someone asks what color an object is, they mean under ordinary distances and conditions. Air is blue even in an ordinary room. It just takes miles worth of air for its slight blue color to be noticeable.
Most physical objects I encounter are the same color up close that they are far away...
Edit: ITT, people who completely misunderstand my point downvoting me and being pedantic
If a leaf was broken up into microscopic bits and flung into the air you wouldn't be able to determine what color it was either. So at best the thing thats missing is that there's a lot less air.
I don't disagree. It's just that we don't frequently encounter throwing microscopic bits of things into the air in our lives, especially early lives. It's pretty normal to be curious about the color of the sky as a child, and it is not obvious that distance of air is what makes enough of a difference. I think you've entirely missed the point of my original comment.
To understand why the sky is blue and why butterfly wings are all sorts of colors even though the material itself is not that color is not something that is intuitive or easy to understand without a great deal of experience and prior knowledge.
It's about density. Think of a single strand of webbing from a spider versus a thick, established spider web, or a single drop of blue food colouring in a bathtub of water.
What is the color of a carbon atom?
I'm obviously talking about tangible physical objects you see every day. I'm talking about lived experience. Most things you encounter are obviously a certain color, transparent, or some amount of reflective. The sky and butterfly wings whose material are not actually that color and pretty normal things to ponder.
It's invisible, therefore it has no color. -Diogenes, probably
Would you also say a mirror is green? Or a glass of water is blue? Windows are a greenish hue? Shaving foam is blue?
I came upon a silly scene,
As they opined 'bout blue,
"The lemming's comment rhymes!", I screamed
An experience quite new!