Justine DiFilippo
Rainbows have been used in many different fields ranging from symbols to television. The gay and lesbian community uses the rainbow as their symbol, Skittles candy tells you to “taste the rainbow” in their advertisements and Rainbow Bright brightened the world with her rainbow crystals. We are so used to seeing them around that we never think directly about why exactly they happen in nature.
Donald Ahrens, author of “Meteorology Today” describes a rainbow as “one of the most spectacular light shows observed on earth.” This may seem like an overstatement, but after one realizes the intricate details of a rainbow we will all agree with Ahrens.
After a rainfall the sunlight enters a raindrop and is bent and reflected from the drop in such a way that the light appears in a spectrum of colors. However, the colors can only be seen by the human eye when the angle between the sun, the drop of water, and the observer’s line of vision is between 40 and 42 degrees. The rainbow is always formed opposite of the sun. In other words, the sun is always behind the viewer of the rainbow.
Rainbows actually form a perfect circle instead of a “bow.” We don’t see a full circle because the earth gets in the way. The lower the sun is to the horizon the more of the circle is visible.
The usual description for a rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The colors are an entire continuum from red to violet and beyond colors that the eye can see. The colors in a rainbow appear because sunlight is made up of the entire range of colors that the eye can detect. When combined the range of sunlight colors looks white to the eye. When a rainbow is formed, the water breaks the light to form the colors.
No matter where we may see rainbows, it is good to remember that they are a spectacular sight of nature that is rare and special to each on of us.
