Why are rainbows perceived as curved or circular? And why do they seem to be a relatively condensed band of the different stripes of color?
In: 10
Light from the sun runs into water droplets in the air and gets bounced back to you. The sun light is actually made up of all sorts of different colors. Red light, for example, “likes to” bounce off water at a certain angle, which is different from the angle the blue light “likes to” bounce off water. So when you look at a rainbow the red circle is the one hitting your eyeball from the angle the color red likes. The blue circle is the one hitting your eyeball from the angle the color blue likes. And so on.
Double rainbows happen when there is another rainbow above the main rainbow that is caused by sunlight bouncing *two times* in a water droplet and then hitting your eyeball. That’s why the second rainbow is less bright than the first – more light escapes each time the sunlight bounces.
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