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Asked by maher123 to Adam, Chris, Eleanor, Jessamyn, Sinead on 13 Nov 2013.
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Adam Murphy answered on 13 Nov 2013:
This is a great question!
The sky is blue because it scatters blue light best, but clouds scatter all light equally, so all seven rainbow colours scatter off them and down into our eyes, making them look white.
But what’s cool is as more and more water collects in the clouds, less and less light is able to get through the clouds and scatter down to us, which is why rainclouds are grey, and if there’s a lot of water, they’re black.
Hope I’ve answered your question!
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Sinead Cullen answered on 16 Nov 2013:
Cool question,
So the white light from the sun consists of all the colors of the rainbow. Since light travels as waves of different lengths, each color has its very own unique wavelength.
It is sort of the same as why skies are blue. Clouds are white because their water droplets or ice crystals are large enough to scatter the light of the seven wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), All of these combined give us white light. Clouds will appear dark or gray when either they are in another clouds shadow or the top of a cloud casts a shadow upon its own base.
The darkness of a cloud also depends on the background sky. A cloud will look darker when it is surrounded by a bright sky and lighter when it is in front of darker ones.
And the reason have dark rainy days is because clouds are blocking the sunlight. Some of the whitest, most pure light can be observed when dark clouds “break apart” and sunlight filters through.
Hope this helps 🙂
Comments
maher123 commented on :
It makes so much more sense now! Thank you , my brains not mushed anymore from thinking about it!