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Asked by to Andrew, Elaine, Emma, Michael, Nancy on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Nancy Carlisle answered on 17 Jun 2014:
A rainbow is caused by the refraction of light through the water. When light is refracted (like it is with a prism or a crystal), the white light bends and depending on the frequency it bends different amounts. This is why the colors always appear in a consistent order- the blue light is refracted at a smaller angle than the red. (Search online for a ‘Newton color wheel’ to see how white light is actually composed of all the other colors!)
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Emma Reid answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Hi Olivia!
Nancy has explained it all really well! You can also get a “double rainbow” where one rainbow sits on top of another one. This is caused by light reflecting twice in the water droplets. In a single rainbow, red is always at the top of the rainbow and violet is in the inner arc but when there are two rainbows the top one has the colours reversed, with violet at the top so it looks like a mirror image. Hope this helps to answer your question. 🙂
Emma -
Andrew French answered on 17 Jun 2014:
These sound like good answers. The light enters a raindrop, and reflects off the back off the drop before spreading out, leaving the drop the same way it went in. This is why rainbows appear opposite where the sun is.
I also believe it is possible to have a moonbow – instead of coming from the sun, the light entering the drops comes form the moon!
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