The Science of Rainbows: Light Split Into Colors

Rainbows form when sunlight is refracted, reflected, and dispersed inside raindrops.
Each raindrop acts like a tiny prism, bending white light into a spectrum of colors.
The colors always appear in the same order: red on the outside, violet on the inside.
The angle of light bending creates the circular arc shape we see.
No two people see the exact same rainbow—it depends on your unique viewing angle.
A secondary rainbow forms when light bounces twice inside raindrops, with reversed colors.
Rainbows aren’t objects—they exist only in your line of sight relative to sunlight and raindrops.
The brightness of a rainbow depends on the size and number of raindrops in the air.
Rainbows can appear from mist, waterfalls, or even garden sprinklers, not just rain.
From above, rainbows are full circles, but we usually see only the arc from the ground.