Like the title says, how does a rainbow exist twice? If we could see every electromagnetic wavelength, would we see all of those “colors” in between the first and second ring? What phenomenon causes it to happen twice and always separated by what seems to be a fixed amount/distance from each other when they happen?
In: Physics
All rainbows are actually double rainbows, but the second rainbow is often very faint. This happens because of how light refracts in water. To get light going in, splitting and coming back out as a rainbow, you need a very specific angle of reflection. Several of these angles exist, but every angle between them is dead – it doesn’t output a rainbow. This is because the light coming out of the raindrops is coming out in an angle that the observer isn’t seeing. The first and second rainbows are the result of two rainbow-creating angles being hit by the sun, and the empty space between them is space where the angle of refraction is dead.
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