“Apparently the color of the white clouds does not escape the influence of the sun’s rays which, if the sun’s light is spread evenly, can make the white appearance of the clouds so special”
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KENDARI, TELISIK.ID – When the sky is clear, the clouds will be white and shaped like cotton. On the other hand, when it rains, the clouds get dark. So what is the cause of the cloud color?
Apparently, the color of the white clouds does not escape the influence of sunlight which if the sunlight is spread evenly, then it can make the white appearance of the clouds so special.
As quoted from Cnnindonesia.com, sunlight or ‘visible light’ can be considered as a wave and part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Each color has a different wavelength, blue light has the shortest wavelength at 400 nanometers and red light has the longest wavelength at 700 nanometers.
Smaller particles can propagate shorter wavelengths more efficiently. When sunlight reaches atmospheric particles, blue light is scattered more strongly than other colors, giving the impression of a blue sky.
When it reaches the clouds, sunlight encounters larger particles, namely millions of water droplets that collect as a result of evaporation. These waters propagate all wavelengths with approximately equal effectiveness.
This scattered light interacts and combines to produce white color. Until the result, as we see white clouds with a blue sky.
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Even so, when you look at clouds, the light you see consists of red, blue, yellow, orange and green colors.
However, we cannot see the colors of all these lights because they appear to the eye from the same place.
So, when all the wavelengths spread by the cloud come together, the wave will appear as white light when touching the human eye.
Then what about the clouds that are gray and dark when it rains.
Quoted from Kompas.com, the gray and dark colors in rain clouds are due to the thickness and height factors, reported by Live Science.
Clouds become thicker and denser as more water droplets and ice crystals collect.
Thus, the thicker the cloud, the more light is scattered and the less other light can penetrate it.
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The gray and dark color of the rain cloud is also added by the particulate matter at the bottom of the rain cloud which doesn’t have much light to spread to the eye.
This effect is further clarified by the greater the size of the water droplets in the rain cloud. Because basically, clouds are formed from air filled with water in the form of gas or what is called water vapor.
When the air near the ground warms, they will rise with the steam. The higher the air rises into the sky, the colder it gets and causes water vapor to condense into atmospheric dust from volcanoes, vehicle exhaust and other sources.
The water droplets produced by the ice crystals combine to form clouds. (C)
Author: Nurdian Pratiwi
Editor: Haerani Hambali
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