How do rainbows work?

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No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world · 5 months ago

Now I know that rainbows are formed due to refraction of light from the sun hitting raindrops and light waves leave at varying angles between 40-42 degrees or somewhere around there. Also, that they’re round.

What I don’t understand is how it’s consistent, like I assume it’s hitting many raindrops, but all these drops are in different places so why does it still form a nice circle. Furthermore, why isn’t the whole sky a rainbow if it’s raining and thus hitting all the drops. I suspect the angle of the sun is playing a part but I’m not a science man.

Please help me get this thought out of my head.

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5 months ago

Sometimes the light reflects twice off the back of the raindrop; this leads to the secondary rainbow. The second reflection causes the order of the colors in the bow to reverse.

This seems to be the how sourced from Here
- SwearingRobin@lemmy.world
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  Thanks for the reply, it hasn’t fully clicked yet, but I’ll get there once I think about it some more.

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