21. Is the sky blue or black in space? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

It is black in space! On Earth, the sky appears blue because the blue portion of the Sun's light scatters the most as it enters our atmosphere. Scattering is very dependent on the wavelength of the light— thus, a shorter wavelength like blue light scatters more—and the size of the gas and dust particles found in the atmosphere. The gas and dust particles in Earth's atmosphere are just the right size for the blue component of sunlight to scatter and give us the deep blue skies we are all familiar with. Remember that scattering just means that the light goes off in many random directions. And, since space is a pretty good vacuum—meaning it has no air molecules—the light can never be scattered. As a result, space is black.

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Answer provided by Jim Zebrowski

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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