How Do Rainbows Form?
Light is made up of a spectrum of colors, each with a different wavelength. When
sunlight passes through raindrops, the drops act as tiny prisms. Prisms refract light and break
it into the colors of the spectrum. The light is reflected off each drop's side as it enters, is
broken up into a spectrum, and bent as it exits. Each wavelength of light bends at a different
angle. When the light exits the drop, it is traveling at an entirely different angle than it was
before, all of its component colors having dispersed into separate beams. Red bends at 42
degrees and violet bends at 40 degrees, for example. The different angles cause the colors to
spread out across the sky in a circular rim we know as a rainbow.
Light doesn't travel in a straight line, so it will continue bending and refracting as it
moves through the air. Rainbows look different, depending on where they're viewed from.
Because most are viewed from the horizon, it appears that the rainbow simply forms an arc
that stops at the horizon; however, a rainbow viewed from above will in fact be visible as a
full circle.
Of course, all of this bending of light in water drops only comes together to make a
beautiful rainbow if the right weather is present and the viewer is in the right location in
relation to it. To see a rainbow, you have to be standing with the sun behind you and the rain
and rainbow opposite you and the sun
It also might take nothing more than a fountain or other producer of mist to create a
tiny rainbow in just the right situation.
In fact, to see the action of rainbows forming and bending on a less grand scale -- and
without waiting around for Mother Nature to cooperate -- you can create the effect with a few
household items on a sunny day. Using a clear glass filled with water, take the glass and a
piece of white paper to a sunny location in the house, usually near a window. Hold the glass
of water above the paper just so until you see the light pass through the glass of water,
bending and forming colors on the sheet of paper. Moving the glass to different heights or
angles in relation to the paper should create different effects.
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how-do-rainbows-form
How do rainbows form?
Rainbow is beautiful natural phenomenon, that can be seen when the sun shines on
the drops from behind the viewer, rainbow usually occurs after a brief thunder shower while
sun is low in the sky, or in the mist of a waterfall and in the spray from a garden hose.
Rinbow is made of light. Rainbow happens when sunlight passes through raindrops,
the drops act like tiny prisms. Prisms refract the light and break the light into spectrum
colour. The spectrum colour is divided into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.
The mechanics former of rainbow :
1.
2.
3.
4.
Sunlight passes through raindrops
The light is reflected off by each drops side. Its bent as it exits
The light exits the drops, then its going into an entirely different angel
All of component colours having dispersed into separate beams. For examples:
red bends at 42o and violet bends at 40o
5. So, the different angles cause the colours to spread out across the sky in a
circular rim. We know as rainbow
The fact about rainbow, rainbow is curved because it can appears along anytime of
sight that forms a specific angle in relation to the drection of light from the sun.
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how-do-rainbows-form
