A rainbow looks like an arc because you’re seeing just part of a perfect circle — formed by sunlight bending and bouncing off raindrops at a special angle!
Rainbows - Facts for Kids
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Facts About Rainbows For Kids
The point directly opposite the Sun where your shadow’s head appears is called the “antisolar point” (anti-sun spot)!
Special Types of Rainbows
A moonbow is a rare rainbow caused by moonlight instead of sunlight — it usually appears white to our eyes!
A fog bow appears in fog instead of rain, and it looks white because the tiny water droplets are too small to separate light into bright colors!
Fire rainbows aren’t actually rainbows — they’re technically called “circumhorizontal arcs” (curved sky lights) and form in high-altitude (very high up) ice crystals!
Twinned rainbows are super rare — you get two primary rainbows splitting from the same base, looking like two identical rainbows growing out of one root!
Glory rainbows are small circular rainbows that appear around your shadow on clouds or fog!
A monochrome rainbow (one-color rainbow) appears at sunrise or sunset when the Sun’s light travels through more atmosphere (air)!
A reflection rainbow forms when sunlight first bounces off a calm water surface, then goes through raindrops — so it’s made with both reflection (bouncing) and refraction (bending)!
Industrial rainbows can form in the spray from cooling towers (big water coolers) and industrial equipment (factory machines)!
Marine rainbows appear in sea spray and can often be seen from ships!
Mathematical & Physical Properties
A primary rainbow forms part of a perfect circle that’s 42 degrees from its center point!
When light enters a raindrop, it slows down by about 25%, and this bending (called refraction) helps separate the colors to form a rainbow!
Each color in a rainbow comes from a slightly different angle: bright red shines at about 42° from the rainbow’s center, and violet appears closer to 40° — with the other colors in between!
A single raindrop only reflects (bounces back) one color of the rainbow to your eyes at any moment!
The rainbow you see is made up of millions of raindrops, each contributing (adding) just one color to the display!
Light bounces inside each raindrop exactly one time before creating the primary rainbow!
Secondary rainbows (second rainbows) are dimmer because light bounces twice inside each raindrop!
The space between a double rainbow (Alexander’s Dark Band) is usually about 10 degrees wide!
Rainbow colors blend together smoothly because there are actually millions of different wavelengths (color measurements) of light!
Historical & Cultural Significance
Ancient Greeks thought rainbows were paths made by Iris, the messenger goddess (female god)!
Sir Isaac Newton was the first scientist to prove that white light contains all the colors of the rainbow!
About 1,000 years ago, Ibn al-Haytham tried to explain rainbows — but it took another scientist 300 years later to get it right using water drops!
In 1637, René Descartes used math to show that a rainbow appears about 42° from the sun, making the first precise scientific explanation!
Chinese mythology (old stories) sees rainbows as bridges between Earth and Heaven!
Norse mythology (Viking stories) described the rainbow as Bifröst, a burning bridge that connected different worlds!
The rainbow flag has become a universal (worldwide) symbol of diversity (differences) and inclusion (welcoming everyone)!
Rainbows appear in the stories and myths (old tales) of almost every culture on Earth!
