Why is Rainbow Curved and Circular?

Rainbows are curved and circular because light bends and splits into colors like a prism.

Imagine you're playing with a water hose on a sunny day. When the water sprays up, it acts like little mirrors that reflect sunlight back to your eyes. Now, imagine all those tiny water drops are like tiny prisms, they split white light into its colorful parts, just like when you shine a flashlight through a prism and see rainbow colors on the wall.

Now, think of a rainbow as a circle drawn in the sky. But we usually only see part of it because we're standing on the ground looking up at the sky. It’s like drawing a full circle with chalk on the floor, if you’re sitting inside the circle, you’ll only see an arc from where you are.

If you could fly high above the Earth, like a bird, you’d see the whole rainbow as a perfect circle, because there would be no ground blocking your view. That’s why rainbows look curved and circular, it's just a full circle we usually only get to see part of! 🌈