Portal:Physics/Selected article/Week 52, 2006

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outside and violet on the inside. A double rainbow includes a second, fainter, arc with colours in the opposite order, that is, with violet on the outside and red on the inside.

Even though a rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours, traditionally the full sequence of colours is most commonly cited as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Light rays enter a raindrop from one direction (typically a straight line from the Sun), reflect off the back of the raindrop, and fan out as they leave the raindrop. The light leaving the rainbow is spread over a wide angle, with a maximum intensity of 40.6°–42°.