How Do Rainbows Form in the Sky?

Rainbows appear when sunlight plays hide-and-seek with water droplets in the air.

Sunlight is like a magical box that holds all the colors of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But it doesn’t show them all at once. When sunlight hits a water droplet, it slows down and bends, just like when you stick your arm in a pool and it looks bent.

Each color of light bends by a slightly different amount, so they spread out inside the water droplet. Then, as the light leaves the droplet, it bends again, this time heading toward our eyes. That’s how we see all those pretty colors lined up in the sky!

Rainbows usually show up when it's raining and the sun is shining. You need to be facing away from the sun and looking toward the rain. It's like you're standing between two friends, one with a box of colors (the sun) and one with lots of tiny water droplets (the rain). Together, they make magic in the sky! Rainbows appear when sunlight plays hide-and-seek with water droplets in the air.

Sunlight is like a magical box that holds all the colors of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But it doesn’t show them all at once. When sunlight hits a water droplet, it slows down and bends, just like when you stick your arm in a pool and it looks bent.

Each color of light bends by a slightly different amount, so they spread out inside the water droplet. Then, as the light leaves the droplet, it bends again, this time heading toward our eyes. That’s how we see all those pretty colors lined up in the sky!

Rainbows usually show up when it's raining and the sun is shining. You need to be facing away from the sun and looking toward the rain. It's like you're standing between two friends, one with a box of colors (the sun) and one with lots of tiny water droplets (the rain). Together, they make magic in the sky!