What’s Really at the End of a Rainbow?
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 12 February 2009 | 2 responses
2 Responses to “What’s Really at the End of a Rainbow?”
Cool photo.
However, there really isn’t an “end” to any rainbow. A rainbow doesn’t actually start from a particular location on the ground and arc across the sky to another location. It is an optical effect caused by sunlight refracted by water droplets, and its apparent location is different to every observer.
The reason rainbows appear to begin and end at the horizon is that usually the droplets which create the rainbow are some distance away from the observer. But that is not always the case–you can observe a rainbow below the horizon in the spray from a garden hose, for example.
Now, the reason that rainbow appears to “end” just behind the car is that the car was kicking up a lot of water droplets which caused a bold rainbow effect. However, if you look closely, you can see that the rainbow continues to arc downward toward the dashboard of the photographer’s car, due to the water droplets which are lingering in the air over the road.
This has been your science lesson of the day.
And I thought leprechauns started trading their pots of gold for SUVs