Why is the sky blue?

Ok, so it is relatively common knowledge that the sky appears blue because of the light scattering effect of our atmosphere. The word “appears” is important there, because it points out that this is actually a trick question. The sky isn’t blue. It’s clear. The night sky is black and full of stars because that pesky light isn’t getting in the way.

But why blue? Why is that the color we see when we look into the daytime sky? This is due to psychology. We can handle the vast emptiness of space at night, when it’s dark anyway and everything takes on a melancholy tinge. But during the day, when there is light about and we have work to do being faced with the infinite expanse is simply too much for the human brain to handle, and, as they so often do, our brains compensate for the raw horror of the universe laid bare before us by washing out our vision with color. We see blue because, despite the psychological need for this shield of perception, we are internally saddened that we must miss out on the vast untapped truth before us.