• Question: why do we get rainbows?

    Asked by kaylee222 to Alan, Nick on 21 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Alan Fitzsimmons

      Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 21 Mar 2014:

      Rainbows are made when sunlight enters raindrops. The light splits up into its individual colours, and makes the rainbow.

      The coloured light always comes out the rainbow close to the direction it came in. So to see a rainbow you have to stand with your back to the Sun, and look at where the raindrops are falling.

    • Photo: Nick Wright

      Nick Wright answered on 21 Mar 2014:

      Rainbows happen when light is diffracted as it passes through water droplets in the Earth’s atmosphere (which is why you often get them after rain showers). The diffraction process splits the light up into all the observable colours, which is how we can then see all the different colours.

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