Are Rainbows Real? Is There Really A Pot Of Gold At The End Of It?

Colors and light that can be seen by the human eye are called a visible light spectrum.

The colors of a rainbow depend on how much light is refracted, or bent, as it passes through the water droplets. Red light is bent the least and violet light is bent the most.

Most of us have seen a rainbow at one time or another. They are often considered to be beautiful, and many people believe that there is a pot of gold at the end of it.

But are rainbows really real? And if they are, where does the pot of gold come in? In this article, we will take a look at the science behind rainbows and see if there is any truth to the legend of the pot of gold!

A rainbow, a meteorological phenomenon, is produced by the process of refraction, reflection, and dispersion of rays of light. As a rainbow does not have a specific location from the viewer, it is physically unapproachable and is not an object.

You can only see a rainbow if you are standing with your back to the sun. The water droplets must be between you and the sun in order for a rainbow to form.

How do rainbows form?

Rainbows are actually an optical illusion. They are created by sunlight shining off of water droplets in the air.

The water droplets act as tiny prisms, and they split the sunlight into its different colors. Red light is refracted at a different angle than blue light, for example.

This is why we see a visible spectrum of colors when we look at a rainbow! So, rainbows are real. But there is no pot of gold waiting for you at the end of one.

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. However, the Irish legend most likely started because people used to believe that rainbows were a sign of good luck.

A rainbow can only form under a few conditions. The air present on the opposite side of the sunlight, as viewed from your live location, should be filled with countless water droplets.

The position of the sun must be quite low in the sky. So, if your elevation on the ground level is the same as the horizon, then the altitude of the sun must be less than 42 degrees to produce a rainbow.

This is why rainbows always appear in the sky after it rains - because there are lots of tiny rain droplets in the air! Rainbows also most likely appear in the late afternoon or early morning. Rainbows are also observed around waterfalls, sea spray, or fog.

What makes a double rainbow?

The primary rainbow occurs when sunlight is reflected once inside the water droplet. A second rainbow, or secondary rainbow, occurs when sunlight reflects twice inside the water droplet before it exits.

The second rainbow appears above the primary rainbow with its colors reversed: violet on top followed by blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Double rainbows are not as bright as single rainbows because the light is being scattered twice before it reaches our eyes.

Secondary rainbows are not as bright as primary rainbows, some of the sunlight shines through the water droplets, while most of it is reflected. This indicates that more visible light rays go away in the wrong directions when a ray of light is reflected twice, which leaves less light to be reflected by the observer.

In theory, every rainbow is a double rainbow. However, the secondary bow in a rainbow is fainter than the primary, making it too weak to spot.

The secondary bow is technically fixed on the sun itself, however, as the angular size of the bow is over 90 degrees (around 130 degrees for red to 137 degrees for violet), it is observed as a primary rainbow on the same side of the sky, around 10 degrees outside at a 50-53 degree apparent angle.

The color of the secondary bow appears reversed compared to the primary, as the secondary bow's 'inside' is 'up' to the viewer. Every rainbow reflects white light within its bands of color, which is 'up' for the secondary bow and 'down' for the primary.

Where can you see the most rainbows?

Did you know that rainbows can actually be seen in the sky during a thunderstorm? That's right - if you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, you may be able to see a rainbow during a thunderstorm!

The best place to see a rainbow is actually in Hawaii! Hawaii has more rainbows than anywhere else in the world.

This is because it is one of the wettest places on Earth, and it also has a lot of sunshine. So if you want to see a rainbow, head on over to Hawaii! Hawaii is called the 'rainbow state.'

Kauai in Hawaii is home to Mount Waialeale and is a rainy island. Mount Waialeale is also one of the wettest spots in the world, so you will frequently spot rainbows.

A moonbow, also known as a lunar rainbow, is usually observed near waterfalls, when moonlight is refracted through the mist. A moonbow is also fainter than your usual rainbow as sunlight is stronger than moonlight.

Yosemite Falls, located in California's Yosemite National Park, is notable for its moonbows. You will spot the best moonbow in summer or spring during a full moon night.

Alberta's Jasper National Park is full of waterfalls, lakes, forests, and mountains. Observing the rainbow over the Canadian Rockies is a whole new experience. Austria's Lake Neusiedl is just about an hour's drive away from Vienna.

It is called the 'Sea of the Viennese' and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lake has great scenery with rainbows. Located on the Brazil-Argentina border is the Iguaza falls which consist of 275 individual waterfalls.

You can also spot a reflection rainbow that appears above any water body. The water reflects a primary bow and a reflection rainbow is created by reflected light.

Another type you can spot is the reflected rainbow that directly appears on a water surface. A stacker rainbow is a series of faint, pastel-colored narrow rainbows that appear below the inner arch of a primary rainbow.

Why is the area below the rainbow brighter?

The area below the rainbow is brighter because of the sunlight that is reflecting off of the water droplets.

If you've ever looked at a rainbow, you may have noticed that the area below the rainbow is usually much brighter than the area above it. This is because of something called Alexander's band.

The dark band of unlit sky situated between the two bows is known as Alexander's band, after the philosopher who first described it, Alexander of Aphrodisias.

Alexander's band is an optical phenomenon that occurs when sunlight is refracted through water droplets in the atmosphere. The result is a bright, colorful band of light that extends from the sun to the observer.

When the sunlight hits the water droplets, it is scattered in all directions. Some of the light waves hit the ground and are reflected back up into the sky.

This is why you see a bright band of light below the rainbow! The angle of this reflected sunlight is 0-39 degrees, while a majority of the rays are concentrated at 40-42 degrees. The angle is crucial because it defines the degree to which light rays are dispersed and refracted.

For instance, a light ray reflected at 0 degrees is neither refracted nor dispersed. This is the reason for the white light below rainbows. This is also true for light reflected at higher angles, but to a lesser degree. Some scientists believe that rainbows form on one of the Saturn moons, Titan.

Titan has humid clouds and a wet surface. The sun is also visible from the surface of Titan. Hence, it does have all the conditions for the formation of some rainbows.

Why is a rainbow curved?

The answer has to do with the way sunlight bends (or refracts) as it passes through water droplets in the atmosphere. The curve of a rainbow happens because each drop of water acts like its own tiny prism. So, as sunlight passes through the raindrops, it is bent and refracted in different directions.

A full rainbow is technically the upper half of a circular rainbow that middles on the antisolar point, which is a point situated directly opposite to the sun, as seen from an observer. The lower half of this circular rainbow is often not visible to us as the rain droplets hit the surface before the rainbow can form.

If you have a high point of view, you may be able to spot the circular rainbow as the landscape drops off sharply in the direction of the rainbow. This allows the rain to fall farther, reflecting light rays from lower angles. You will also be able to spot circular rainbows from an aircraft.

The rainbow shape depends on the water's refractive index. This is the reason why light reflects off droplets, within a limited span of angles, between 0-42 degrees. The sunlight bends more at the edges of the water droplets than it does in the middle, and this creates the curve that we see in a rainbow.

Light waves move in a straight line. But when those waves hit a drop of water, they start to bend (or refract). The amount of bending depends on the wavelength of the light.

The Colors Of The Rainbow

The colors of the rainbow are actually caused by an optical illusion.

When sunlight shines on water droplets, they reflect the light in a visible spectrum of colors. Red is at the top of the rainbow, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. This is because each color has a different wavelength and red light has the longest wavelength of all the colors.

The most remembered sequence and commonly cited spectrum of rainbow viewed by the human eye are the sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet as stated by Isaac Newton. Many remember the colors by the mnemonic device-ROYGBIV (Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain) or reverse order initialism-VIBGYOR.

As red light has the longest wavelength, it occurs on the outer part of the arch of the rainbow. So, violet is the inner arch as it has the shortest wavelength. At the edges, the rainbow colors overlap.

As a result, a sheen of white light is produced, which makes the insides of the rainbow far brighter than its outsides. Visible light is only one part of rainbows.

There is infrared radiation present beyond visible red light and ultraviolet beyond violet. Beyond infrared-radio waves exist, beyond ultraviolet - x-rays exist, and beyond x-rays- is gamma radiation. An instrument known as the spectrometer is used by scientists to study the rainbow's invisible parts.

A red rainbow, or monochrome rainbow, often appear at sunset or sunrise. During this period, the light travels deeper through the atmosphere, with shorter wavelength lights being scattered, leaving the red color in the rainbow.

When a single endpoint produces two rainbows, it is called a twinned rainbow.

It is produced because of the light striking an air mass with a variety of shapes and sizes of rain droplets, often a raincloud that has different shapes and sizes of raindrops. A narrow pastel arc that generally appears underneath the inner arc of rainbows is called a supernumerary rainbow.