Eli5 why rainbows appears in a curved shape? Why isn’t it just a random streak in the sky? What causes their signature curved look?
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Think of it this way…
Every single raindrop being lit by the sun throws back a very feint circular rainbow at a certain angle to the incoming sunshine. What you see is the accumulated light being thrown back from the particular raindrops that are aligned just right for your eye. This would be a complete circle, except usually the ground blocks around half of it.
This means that if you are up in the sky at the time, you can see an entire circular rainbow. It also means that every viewer sees a slightly different one. It also means that since it is purely an optical illusion, rainbows don’t have a physical end, so sadly there is no pot of gold…
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