Can you tell me why a double rainbow sometimes appears around the Sun?

India
December 9, 2006 5:07pm CST
Can you tell me why a double rainbow sometimes appears around the Sun?
1 response
• United States
9 Dec 06
A rainbow does not occur at a certain location in the sky it depends on the location of the person who is viewing the rainbow. It also depends on the angle of the sun, darkness of the sky and falling raindrops. A rainbow occurs when the sun shines on falling rain. This happens when there are water drops in the air and the sun is shining behind the person who is observing the rainbow. The sun has to be at a low angle in order for this event to happen. The ideal conditions for the brightest rainbow viewing are when half of the sky is dark, it is still raining, and there are clear skies over the person observing the rainbow. The colors of the rainbow are created by the dispersion of sunlight that is refracted by spherical shaped raindrops. First, the sunlight is refracted when it enters the top of the raindrop, next, the light reflects off the back of the raindrop and then the light is refracted again as it leaves the raindrop. The light reflects back at different angles. The degree of the angles varies but the most intense light occurs between 40-42 degrees. The color of the rainbow depends on how much light is bent as well as the wavelength of the light. Refraction causes the light to bend depending on the wavelength of the light. With longer wavelength light, the amount of refraction decreases and with the shorter wavelength light, there is and increase in refraction. The shorter wavelength light such as violet and blue bend the most especially the violet light, which bends at a 40-degree angle as it exits the raindrop. The longer wavelength light such as red and orange do not bend as much, with red bending the least at a 42-degree angle. There is only one color of light per each raindrop so therefore it takes many drops to produce a rainbow! Does this help?