how do rainbows stay for so long if the rain had stopped and more importantly how do they happen if the drop fall
In: Chemistry
Rainbows are ony visible if there is rain. But it doesn’t have to be raining where you are, only where the rainbow forms, and that can be some distance away. After all, there has to be sunlight, so it stands to reason that rainbows happen when there are rainclouds moving over the landscape, interspersed with sun and blue sky.
The sun must be behind you at an approx. 30 degree angle for it to form a rainbow in rain some distance away from you in the opposite direction. It is the millions of raindrops that are at the exact right position above the ground at any given moment, as the rain falls, that contribute to the scattering of light ) (by internal refraction in the drops) of the rainbow in your direction. So it is that as raindrops fall too low they stop contributing to the rainbow light in your direction, while new raindrops fall from above and move into the correct position to be part of the rainbow light in your direction.
I emphasize *your direction* because all raindrops that are illuminated by the sunlight will scatter light in a rainbow kind of way, but those that are in other positions than where you see a rainbow, will not form a rainbow that is visible for you, in your position. But if you could move fast around, you would notice that the rainbow would “follow you” around, keeping the same angle with the sun. Which is why you cannot really find that pot of gold at the end of one…
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