Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Can there be 2 rainbows at the same time?

                                          Can there be 2 rainbows at the same time?

It can be. It is an interesting thing about rainbows.
The double rainbows will always be on the top of the other ! First we see how does a rainbow gets formed?
When light passes through the rain drops trapped in the air , it is reflected and refracted out in different directions.
In most simple terms , I can say that a rain drop at that time acts like a prism. This experiment we have studied in our 2nd PUC.
The different colours of visible light exit the drop at different angles. If enough drops reflect enough amount of light at once , one rainbow is formed.
Sometimes , though , the process that causes a rainbow will reflect twice instead of once ; in this case , the rainbow forms a mirror image of itself that is higher up and thus much fainter to human eye . Double rainbows are actually just mirror image of same rainbow .

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