How is a rainbow formed

Rainbow

The rainbow of colors or the rainbow of rain, which is one of the most beautiful landscapes that know no borders. As it can happen anywhere on the face of the earth, and it is a natural physical phenomenon that science was able to explain, so the world (Roné Descartes) was the first to reveal its truth in the year XNUMX AD; As the light is refracted and decomposed into its parts in a raindrop, and a rainbow appears on sunny rainy days.

The rainbow consists of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo or dark blue, and then violet in order. A mixture of colors merging together, and it is important to mention that each of these colors has a different wavelength (range), so each color appears separately from the other.

A rainbow can form from moonlight, but these are abnormal cases that rarely occur due to the need for this phenomenon for many conditions, such as the location of the moon at the moment its light is refracted on a raindrop, and the strength of its light; Where the human eye will not be able to see colors at night, often because of its weakness.

How is a rainbow formed?

For this natural phenomenon to occur, the two most important conditions must be met: sunlight first, and rain second. The light coming from the sun falls diagonally on a drop of water, and it is known that if the light travels from one medium to another of different densities, it suffers refraction, so the light reflects after passing through the inner surface of the water drop, then it travels until it exits again from the drop into the air, and it is refracted. Again, due to the difference between the two mediums, the angle of refraction is now acute, less than 45 degrees.

The colors of the rainbow

Light is a set of multiple wavelengths that form the final color, and the refractive index of each wavelength differs from the other, resulting in separate colors according to the aforementioned arrangement. It has a higher salinity than over land, for example.

Rainbows in myths

Since ancient times, and because the rainbow is not new, people used to see it after the rain, so it was meaningful to them, so people assumed in the past that it was a good news that the rain and hurricanes had stopped, and it is logical that as soon as the clouds clear, the sun appears, and there is some rain in the air so that the opportunity is favorable To see it, but in Europe they believed that at the end of the rainbow there is gold waiting for them, and in Africa they believed that the house from which the rainbow ascends is ominous, so they saw it as a snake, and others saw it as a bridge that ascends to heaven.