How is a rainbow formed? Can you make an artificial Rainbow?
How Rainbow Formed & Make An Artificial Rainbow?
A rainbow is a natural spectrum of light appearing after or during a rain shower. Where the sunlight works as a beam of light that is dispersed by tiny water droplets present in the atmosphere. A rainbow is always formed in the opposite direction of the sun.
The water droplets work as a prism, which converts and spreads rays of sun into seven colors, i.e., VIBGYOR (V-violet, I-indigo, B-blue, G-green, Y-yellow, O-orange, R-red). This is called dispersion of light. These seven colours are obtained are known as the spectrum of light. The prism works as a medium that spreads and combines the beam of light.
Issac Newton was the first one to use a glass prism to obtain the spectrum of light.
The water droplet works as the prism. From it, the ray of sunlight refracts and disperse the incident sunlight, then refract internally and finally, refract it again when it comes out of the raindrop. Due to the dispersion of light and internal reflection, different colours reach the observer’s eyes.
Yes, we can make an artificial rainbow by using a glass prism and a beam of light. We just need to make the beam of light pass through the prism, and we can see that there is a spectrum of light. The phenomena occurring in both cases are the same, so the result will be the same. But the size and maybe shape will be different. It is the experiment of the spectrum of light and dispersion.
– Written By Aruja
Explain how a rainbow is formed and why we can see this phenomenon.
Explain How a Rainbow is Formed
A rainbow is a phenomenon in which light rays get reflected, refracted, and dispersed by water droplets, resulting in the spectrum of light. This phenomenon occurs immediately after rainfall due to a highly humid atmosphere and in the absence of air pollution.
A rainbow is a band of color that appears in the sky and can only be seen when the sun
shines through falling rain. This pattern of colors starts with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, to violet.
A rainbow is formed when white light from the sun enters into the water droplets and is refracted (bent), split into separate colors, and reflected.
They are classified into two types of rainbow:
1. Primary Rainbow: A primary rainbow takes place in the atmosphere when light rays from the sun hit the water drops at a unique and certain angle. It is a phenomenon that is formed by processes that include: refraction of light, dispersion of light, internal reflection, and secondary
refraction.
2. Secondary Rainbow: A secondary rainbow is formed by a secondary reflection of light within the raindrops. It is the only difference between a primary rainbow and a secondary rainbow. Therefore,
When we see the light reflected by the raindrops, the spectrum of the light is
the exact opposite of that of a primary rainbow, which means the secondary
rainbow colors are like red on the inside and violet on the outside.
We see rainbows because of the geometry that is possessed by the raindrops. When the sun shines in the rain, incident rays of light from the sun enter the raindrops and are refracted inwards. They are reflected from the back of the raindrop and are refracted again when they exit the raindrop, returning to our eyes and letting to see this phenomenon.
– Written By Aashutosh
