What causes rainbows to appear in the sky after rain?

Rainbows appear after rain because light bends and splits into colors when it goes through water droplets.

Imagine you're playing with a prism, that colorful triangle that turns white light into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. A rainbow is like a giant, floating prism in the sky!

When rain is falling, millions of tiny water droplets act like these prisms. Sunlight hits them from above, and as it goes through each drop, it bends, or refracts, and splits into all the colors we know.

Then, the light reflects off the back of the water droplet and bends again when it exits, this is called refraction twice, like a double twist in the light’s journey. This splitting and bending makes the different colors spread out, creating a beautiful arc across the sky.

You only see a rainbow if you're standing with the sun behind you and rain in front of you, just like when you look at a prism from the right angle to see all the colors. That’s why rainbows are special, they’re nature’s little show, made by light and water working together!