Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomena that have amazed people for as long as time. The beautiful colors that appear in a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) all make for an exquisite sight to see.The “bow” part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of color all having a common center. Though rainbows are bow-shaped in most cases, there are also phenomena of rainbow-colored strips in the sky: in the shape of stripes, circles or even flames. So it is not always a rain”bow!”
Rainbows cause a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. The traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most concentrated light at an angle of 40°–42°. A color that travels more slowly in glass will bend more sharply when it passes from air to glass, because the speed difference is more severe. A color that moves more quickly in glass won't slow down as much, so it will bend less sharply. In this way, the colors that make up white light are separated according to frequency when they pass through glass. If the glass bends the light twice, as in a prism, you can see the separated colors more easily. This is called dispersion. Drops of rainwater can refract and disperse light in the same basic way as a prism. In the right conditions, this refraction forms rainbows.
Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomena that have amazed people for as long as time. The beautiful colors that appear in a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) all make for an exquisite sight to see.
The “bow” part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of color all having a common center. Though rainbows are bow-shaped in most cases, there are also phenomena of rainbow-colored strips in the sky: in the shape of stripes, circles or even flames. So it is not always a rain”bow!”
Rainbows cause a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. The traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most concentrated light at an angle of 40°–42°. A color that travels more slowly in glass will bend more sharply when it passes from air to glass, because the speed difference is more severe. A color that moves more quickly in glass won't slow down as much, so it will bend less sharply. In this way, the colors that make up white light are separated according to frequency when they pass through glass. If the glass bends the light twice, as in a prism, you can see the separated colors more easily. This is called dispersion. Drops of rainwater can refract and disperse light in the same basic way as a prism. In the right conditions, this refraction forms rainbows.
A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. It is an optical illusion whose apparent position depends on the observer's location and the position of the sun. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior.
Rainbows are amazing marvels that are the result of hard science at work!
The “bow” part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of color all having a common center. Though rainbows are bow-shaped in most cases, there are also phenomena of rainbow-colored strips in the sky: in the shape of stripes, circles or even flames. So it is not always a rain”bow!”
Rainbows cause a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. The traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most concentrated light at an angle of 40°–42°. A color that travels more slowly in glass will bend more sharply when it passes from air to glass, because the speed difference is more severe. A color that moves more quickly in glass won't slow down as much, so it will bend less sharply. In this way, the colors that make up white light are separated according to frequency when they pass through glass. If the glass bends the light twice, as in a prism, you can see the separated colors more easily. This is called dispersion. Drops of rainwater can refract and disperse light in the same basic way as a prism. In the right conditions, this refraction forms rainbows.
A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. It is an optical illusion whose apparent position depends on the observer's location and the position of the sun. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior.
Rainbows are amazing marvels that are the result of hard science at work!
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