# Little Girl Flying in the Sky Follow Lily as she flies up through the sky to see how geese fly in a V, why the sky is blue, how clouds float, and how rainbows and sunsets form\. By Jillian Qu Topic: Stories & Mythology [Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/gF2bwstbAwoS) ## Transcript ### 1. Lily in the meadow Meet Lily\. On a breezy summer morning she stands in the meadow by the old apple tree, looking up at the sky\. Today she is going to fly up into it and see how it works\. Drag anywhere on the scene to turn it and look around\. ### 2. Up, up and away Press Take off and Lily leaps into the air\. The meadow drops away beneath her and the apple tree shrinks to a dot\. The sky is a thin layer of air wrapped around the whole Earth\. Almost all of our weather happens in the lowest layer of air, which reaches about 6 to 18 km up depending on where you are\. ### 3. Flying with the geese A skein of geese, a flock flying together, joins her in a V\. Each wingtip leaves a swirl of rising air, and the goose behind rides on it\. This can save energy so the flock flies farther, and the birds take turns at the front\. Most migrating birds fly between about 150 and 600 m above the ground\. ### 4. Why is the sky blue? Sunlight holds every colour of the rainbow\. Air is made of molecules, tiny particles far too small to see, and they bounce blue light around much more than red\. So blue light reaches Lily from every part of the sky\. ### 5. Through the clouds Lily climbs through a layer of fluffy cumulus clouds\. Each cloud is made of countless water droplets, each about a hundredth of a millimetre across\. Together they can weigh hundreds of tonnes\. Rising warm air holds the tiny droplets up\. The flat bottoms of fair\-weather cumulus clouds are usually less than about 550 m up, and sometimes over 2 km\. ### 6. A rainbow appears A shower falls in front of Lily while the low sun shines from behind her\. Each raindrop bends and reflects sunlight back, splitting it into colours\. The bow is always about 42 degrees from the point opposite the sun, with red outside and violet inside\. Turn off the shower: with no raindrops there is no rainbow\. ### 7. Sunset glow The sun sinks low and its light now crosses much more air to reach Lily\. Most of the blue is scattered away on the long trip\. Oranges and reds are left, and they paint the sky and the clouds\. ### 8. Home again Lily glides down through the evening air and lands softly by the apple tree\. Next time you look up, think of her journey: scattered blue light, floating droplets, helpful geese and a bow of colours\.