Rainbows are beautiful arcs of color that appear in the sky when sunlight and rain meet! Here's a simple explanation of how they're made:
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Sunlight is actually made of all the colors of the rainbow! You just can't see them all mixed together.
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Raindrops act like tiny prisms. A prism is a special piece of glass that can separate light into different colors.
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When sunlight enters a raindrop, it slows down and bends (refracts). This bending separates the white sunlight into its individual colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
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These colors bounce off the back of the raindrop (reflect).
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As the colored light leaves the raindrop, it bends again (refracts) even more!
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All these colored rays of light then travel to your eyes. You see them as a beautiful arc of color – a rainbow!
So, a rainbow is formed when sunlight shines through raindrops, separating the light into different colors, which then reflect and refract to reach your eyes! Also, even though rainbows look like arcs, they're actually full circles! We usually only see the top half because the ground gets in the way.
