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When walking with my grandmother and father in the country recently on a sunny day, I remarked not only on how the hills further away seemed fainter (a fairly obvious observation) but that also how they seemed to be be a tinge blue. Both present agreed - this was something I had never thought about before.

Why is this? Is this some sort of super-small-scale version of Rayleigh scattering?

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    $\begingroup$ Indeed, it’s Rayleigh scattering. There is a lot of air in between you and the hills, scattering blue sunlight towards you. $\endgroup$
    – knzhou
    Commented Jun 17, 2018 at 20:27
  • $\begingroup$ See also the answer to this very similar question: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/412254/… $\endgroup$
    – my2cts
    Commented Jun 17, 2018 at 22:36

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