How Does Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why The Sky Is Blue Work?

The sky looks blue because sunlight travels through Earth’s atmosphere and gets scattered by tiny particles in the air, making it look like a big blue blanket around us.

Imagine you're playing with a bag full of marbles, some red, some green, some blue. When you shake the bag, the small marbles bounce around more than the big ones. In this case, sunlight is like those marbles, and the tiny particles in the air are like the small marbles.

When sunlight reaches Earth, it’s white light, like mixing all the colors of a rainbow together. But when it hits the air, the blue light bounces around more, spreading out and filling the sky with blue. It's like when you shine a flashlight through a jar full of glitter, the blue glitter shines brightest.

You might wonder, “Why isn’t the sky purple?” Well, just like how some marbles bounce more than others, blue light bounces more than violet (which is even bluer). So we see blue instead of purple. It’s like when you mix paint, blue and violet make a darker color, but since blue is brighter, it wins the show!