Why Are Rainbows Made? (Know With images)

Rainbows are one of the most beautiful meteorological phenomena across the globe. We all love to see rainbows in the sky. Though you have already seen them, how are they formed? Let us discuss this below.

What Are Rainbows Made Of?

Rainbows are made when the sunlight is scattered by water droplets, such as fog or raindrops, through a procedure known as refraction. Refraction occurs when the Sunlight changes direction, passing through a medium denser than air, like a raindrop.

After the refracted sunlight enters the raindrop, it is reflected off the back and, after that, is retracted once again when it exits and travels to your eyes. This is the procedure that gives us beautiful rainbows.

How Does Refraction Result In The Colors Of A Rainbow?

The sun’s light is made of several different wavelengths, or we can even say colors, that usually travel at different speeds when passing through the same medium. This makes the white light of the sun split into different colors.

The rays with longer wavelengths appear as red light, and the shorter ones look violet or blue. We can see the color spectrum of the rainbow when the light passes through the raindrop at various angles of near about two degrees, from the color red to violet.

However, this is not a completely true spectrum because the colors usually mix and blur throughout the spectacle. The actual scatter angle from raindrops is not the same for everyone, meaning every rainbow appears unique and different to the observer.

However, for the observer to see or enjoy a rainbow, they should be in a particular position that is relative to the water droplets and the sun-

The lower the sun in the sky, the more of a rainbow’s arch the observer can see. However, it should be less than 42 degrees in the sky.

The observer needs to be positioned so that the Sun comes behind them.

Water droplets, such as fog or rain, should remain before the beholder.

Usually, rainbows can be seen in the sky for almost an hour.

What Are The Colors Of The Rainbow?

As mentioned earlier, the colors you can find in a rainbow result from the sunlight being split into several wavelengths. We all believe there are only seven colors in a rainbow today. At first glance, you may think it is true, but after looking closer, you may find out that there are far more than seven beautiful colors.

A rainbow is not a fully pure spectrum because it is mostly made of various types of individual spectral colors that have mixed and overlapped. In those mixed colors, the ray with the longest wavelength is red color, and the one with the shortest wavelength is violet.

There are three primary colors in a rainbow, which are red, yellow, and blue. The three secondary hues are orange, green, and violet, and the six tertiary colors are red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, red-violet, and blue-violet.

So, in this article, we have learned some exciting things about the Rainbow. You may know some other interesting facts from our website.

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