Last night, we got some much needed rain. Lots of it. However the storms kept coming and going and between all of them, even during some of them, the sun was shining bright. When the sun is setting and its raining we can count on seeing a Rainbow out back. I called the kids over and we must have seen five rainbows throughout the evening. Unfortunately, I couldn’t capture a picture to do them justice.
The girls and I were admiring the bright colors. They were singing “red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet too.” Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop wondering why the rainbow was always in the exact same spot. Most of the time we can see end to end. It is always in the same place though.
So, we did what every family would do. We asked Alexa to tell us about Rainbows.
Here are some fun facts I did not know:
- Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of the sky directly opposite the sun (this explains why the evening storms always produce rainbows in the same place as the sun is setting)
- Rainbows can be full circles. We only usually see the arc formed by illuminated water droplets above the ground and centered on a line from the sun to the observer’s eye.
- With a double rainbow, the second arc is outside the primary arc, and the order of its colors are reversed! Red is on the inner side of the arc. This is caused by the light being reflected twice on the inside of the water droplet before leaving it
- A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but is an optical illusion caused by water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source (sadly for my kids we won’t ever be able to find that pot of gold)