Why Is the Sky Blue?

Have you ever looked up and wondered, why is the sky so blue? Sunlight looks white, but it is really lots of colors hiding together. The air around us is full of tiny tiny bits we can't see. Light travels in waves, red is a long stretched out wave, blue is a small wiggly one. Big red waves zoom past the tiny bits, but small blue waves bounce everywhere. So all over the sky, blue light bounces toward your eyes, that is what you see. But wait, violet wiggles even more than blue, so why isn't the sky violet? Two reasons. First, the sun sends out less violet light than blue light. Second, our eyes see blue much better than violet, so blue wins. But bees and birds can see ultraviolet, light that is invisible to us, their sky might look different from ours. At sunset, light travels through lots more air, blue gets scattered away. And only the warm reds and oranges reach us. Hello, sunset? So next time you look up, you'll know, the sky is blue because of bouncing light.