Ask Tappity: Science Questions for Kids > What are Rainbows Made of?
What are Rainbows Made of?
We know what rainbows look like, but what are they made of? Watch this video to find out, or read our explanation below!
Rainbows are Made of Rain
That’s right! Case closed.
Hang on a Second
Ok, there’s a bit more to it than that. When you’re looking at a rainbow, you’re seeing tiny water droplets suspended in the air - they’re so small that they float, instead of falling down. There need to be a lot of them, which is why rainbows often appear after it rains. Also, the sun usually needs to be behind you - because the way the light hits these raindrops is what explains all the colors.
Water Splits the Colors of Sunlight
Light moves differently through water than it does through air, and different colors of light move slightly differently than other colors. Sunlight is made up of every color, and when that light hits one of these suspended droplets of water, it goes through it and bounces off the far side, back towards you (if the Sun was behind you to begin with). The thing is, the different colors of light get bounced off at slightly different angles. So from a water droplet near the top of the rainbow, it's at exactly the right angle to you for the red light to enter your eye (the rest of the colors go somewhere else - just not into your eye!). The water droplets near the bottom of the rainbow are at the right angle to reflect violet light into your eye.
Rainbows Are Reflected Sunlight
So, when you look at a rainbow, you’re looking at sunlight being reflected off of water droplets, which split the colors into different directions because of how light moves through water. If you were to be standing in a different spot, you might still see a rainbow, but the colors you saw would be coming from different raindrops. The rainbow you see is specific to you, and only you can see that exact rainbow. Here’s another cool rainbow fact - there is no end of the rainbow, because rainbows are actually circles. That’s right - if you get high enough, you can see a full rainbow, which is a circle!
Rainbow Facts for Kids
Got rainbow questions? We’ve got rainbow answers!
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Rainbows show the entire spectrum of visible light, usually split up into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.
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You won’t see the color pink in the rainbow. Why? Because pink is a color your brain makes up to interpret the combination of red and violet - two colors on the opposite sides of the rainbow - entering your eye at the same time. So does pink even technically exist? Well, that’s up for debate.
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There is no end of the rainbow, because rainbows are actually circles. You just can’t usually see the rest of them, because they’re cut off by the ground. If you get high enough - like in a plane - and very lucky, you can see a full circular rainbow.
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Yes - the water that condenses has nothing else in it, at least at first. Water condensation is a method used to purify water for drinking.
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Sunlight contains the entire spectrum of visible light - all the colors! It appears to us as white, because that’s how our brain interprets all of the different colors hitting our eye at once. Water droplets change the path of the light (this is called refraction), sending the colors on different paths in the process.
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A fogbow is a lot like a rainbow, except it appears white like a cloud, and a lot fainter. They appear in fog, in much the same way as a rainbow, except with super tiny droplets of water that don’t reflect much color.
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