Children will be able to colour the sky a different shade for first time in 200 years, after scientists created a vivid ‘new blue’ and Crayola announced it is turning it into a crayon.

In 2009 Oregon State University made the serendipitous discovery of an entirely new colour while heating chemicals in a laboratory oven.

The bright blue shade was the first new blue pigment to be created since the French chemist Louis Jacques Thenard discovered cobalt blue in 1802.