A Rainbow as an Optical Phenomenon - Essay Example

A rainbow can be explained simply as an optical phenomenon that is seen as an arc made up of a band of colors, which results from the sun rays refracting in the water drops. When the rays of the sunshine on water droplets in the open atmosphere, a rainbow is formed. A Rainbow is formed depending on the frequency of light. When a ray of light passes into a water drop from the air, the color component of light moves at a slow speed, and depending on the frequency they have, they move at different speeds. The violet light, which is the lowest in the rainbow color order, bends at a very tight angle when entering the raindrop. In the drops right-hand side, some light is returned to the air while the rest is reflected backward. A portion of the reflected light moves out of the drop left side. As it moves back into the air, it bends. By doing this, every single raindrop disperses some white light into the component colors.