Weather field note
Sunlight taking a bow
The Rainbow's Hidden Colors
A rainbow appears when sunlight bends inside countless raindrops, spilling out every color that was secretly hiding in what looked like plain white light.
Let's look closer
Where do all those colors come from if sunlight looks white?
unlight looks white, but it's secretly made of every color at once, blended together so completely that our eyes can't tell the colors apart on their own. As sunlight enters a raindrop, it bends, and each color bends by a slightly different amount, with red bending the least and violet bending the most. That tiny difference fans the colors apart inside the raindrop, and after bouncing off the back wall and bending once more on the way out, the colors spread into the wide, curved band you see arcing across the sky.
Look for this
Explorer clue
Next time it rains while the sun is out, stand with the sun behind you and look for a rainbow forming in the misty air ahead.
Your turn to wonder
Curiosity question
If you carried a hidden rainbow of colors inside you like sunlight does, which color would you want to show the world first?
Keep wandering
