Article: What Causes Rainbows?

Where do rainbows come from? Rainbows are created when water droplets in the air act like tiny prisms and refract (bend) sunlight so its colors are separated. As with a prism, red light is bent the least and violet light the most. Some of the refracted light hits the back of the raindrop and is reflected from the back of the raindrop. Because of the angle at which you are viewing the rainbow, you see only one color of light from each droplet, so a rainbow is unique for each ...

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