• Question: @aoife how are rainbows formed

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      Asked by 222newg34 to Aoife, Matthew, Louise, Conor, Brian on 16 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by 636newg33.
      • Photo: Aoife Lucid

        Aoife Lucid answered on 16 Nov 2016:

        Hi!

        Rainbows are formed by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets in the sky. What this means is that the water droplets scatter (or separate) the light from the sun into some of its constituent wavelengths which allowing us to see all of the colours of the rainbow.

        This is similar to an experiment you might have seen in your science book where a glass shape called a prism is used to separate light and show the colours of the rainbow – it looks like this

        It’s actually a really cool bit of physics!

      • Photo: Louise Mc Grath

        Louise Mc Grath answered on 16 Nov 2016:

        Hello!

        Sorry for the late response, some of the questions have only just come through for me now! I think the website is acting up!

        So on to answering your question. There are water droplets in the sky and when the sun shines on these droplets, the sunlight gets dispersed (or split up) into its 7 colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. This dispersion of light then creates what we know to be a rainbow!

        It generally happens after it rains as this is when the air contains lots of water droplets!

      • Photo: Matthew Kitching

        Matthew Kitching answered on 18 Nov 2016:

        Hey guys and gals,

        So louise and aoife have answered this question pretty well.

        Rainbows are cool! maybe i can try and add some more cool rainbow facts?

        Have you ever seen a double rainbow (the second one the order of colours is inverted)

        How about a triple rainbow?

        Did you know that rainbows are actually circular? you can see them from aeroplanes!
        http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/03/drone-captures-full-circular-rainbow-inside-worlds-biggest-waterfall-5660419/

        hope this is an interesting addition 🙂

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