How Rainbows Form
This video is a part of Animated Atmosphere, a suite of short videos produced by the UCAR Center for Science Education with FableVision Studios.
See a rainbow in the sky? Most likely you’ve noticed the order of the colors. But how do rainbows form? Find out how.
Transcript
When it's raining and sunny at the same time, you might see a rainbow.
Sunlight looks bright white.
Yet it contains all the colors of the rainbow.
When it hits a water droplet in the air,
the light bends and separates into distinct colors.
When sunlight hits thousands of water droplets in the air,
a rainbow forms with seven colors that we can see, always in the same order:
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Next time the Sun starts to come out after a storm,
look up at the sky with the Sun behind you and the rain in front of you.
You might just get lucky!