Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomena created by sunlight interacting with raindrops in the atmosphere. Here's a clear breakdown of how they form:
🌈 How Rainbows Are Made — Step by Step
1. ☀️ Sunlight hits a raindrop
- Sunlight is made up of many colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet — aka ROYGBIV).
- When this white light enters a raindrop, it slows down and bends — this bending is called refraction.
2. 🌐 Light reflects inside the raindrop
- After bending, the light hits the back of the raindrop and reflects (bounces) off the inner surface.
3. 📤 Light exits the drop and bends again
- As the reflected light exits the raindrop, it bends again (refracts a second time).
- This second refraction spreads the light into a spectrum of colors, each bent by a slightly different amount.
🎨 Why you see colors
- Each color of light bends by a different amount:
- Red bends the least
- Violet bends the most
- That’s why the colors spread out into a circle of colors — a rainbow.
👁️ Why you see a rainbow in the sky
- You only see a rainbow when the sun is behind you and rain is in front of you.
- The angle between the incoming sunlight and the light that reflects to your eyes is about 42 degrees.
- Each person sees their own personal rainbow, because it depends on the exact angle of the light reaching their eyes.
🌈 Summary
- Rainbows are created by:
- Refraction (light bends entering raindrop)
- Reflection (light bounces inside drop)
- Refraction again (light exits and spreads into colors)
✨ The result: a beautiful arc of color, painted across the sky by physics!
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