• Question: why is ranbows diffrent colours

    Asked by jamal179 to Cathal, Ciara, Emma, Michael, Sive on 14 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Sive Finlay

      Sive Finlay answered on 14 Nov 2013:


      Hi Jamal,
      Michael already answered the question but basically it’s all to do with how sunlight passes through water droplets.
      What we see as white light is actually made up of a spectrum of lots of colours of different wavelengths. You can see this if you get a colour wheel and spin it really fast – eventually all different colour wavelengths blend together and look white.
      When sunlight passes through water droplets they break up the white light into the colours of different wavelengths (like a prism) and then these coloured wavelengths are reflected off the water droplet so we see lovely coloured rainbows.
      Sive

    • Photo: Michael Nolan

      Michael Nolan answered on 14 Nov 2013:


      Hi Jamal,

      Sive is bang on see also:

      /lithiumn13-zone/2013/11/11/why-does-rain-and-sun-make-rainbow/

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