How are rainbows caused?

Question

i always wondered how it has those nice colors and how it is formed.

Answer 1

Rainbows occur when there is sun and rain occuring.

The (white) light coming from the sun is split into the visible spectrum or ROYGBIV when it passes through a droplet of rain. The same thing happens if you shine white light into a glass prism.

Answer 2

Rainbows are caused by the reflection and refraction of the sun's rays as they fall on drops of rain.As the ray passes into a drop of rain,the water in the drop acts as a tiny prism.The ray is bent or refracted  as it enters the drop and is separated into different colours.As it strikes the inner surface of the drop,it is further refracted and dispersed.Each colour emerges  at a slightly different angle depending upon its wavelength,  producing separate bands of colour resulting in the formation of the rainbow.

Answer 3

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 intense light at an angle of 40°–42°. The angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does depend on its refractive index. Seawater has a higher refractive index than rain water, so the radius of a 'rainbow' in sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow. This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of these bows.

The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour. Blue light (shorter wavelength) is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection and some light does emerge from the back. However, light coming out the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the sun because spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together rather than forming a rainbow.

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. The bow is centred on the shadow of the observer's head, or more exactly at the antisolar point (which is below the horizon during the daytime), appearing at an angle of 40°–42° to the line between the observer's head and its shadow. As a result, if the Sun is higher than 42°, then the rainbow is below the horizon and cannot be seen as there are not usually sufficient raindrops between the horizon (that is: eye height) and the ground, to contribute. Exceptions occur when the observer is high above the ground, for example in an aeroplane, on top of a mountain, or above a waterfall.

Answer 4

Rainbows are created by the refraction (bending) of visible light by water droplets. The visible contains (technically) too many colors to count because three primary colors 'bleed' into each other. However, we are most concerned about red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are the seven main colors of the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. By the process of refraction, the rainbows are an arc shape, and appear as beautiful as they are. The color with the longest wavelength and lowest frequency, which is red, is at the top. The color with the shortest wavelength and highest frequency, which is violet, is at the top. Everything else is in between.

Answer 5

God puts them there.