Question

After a dreary day of rain, the sun peeks through the clouds and a rainbow forms. You notice the rainbow is the shape of a parabola.

Answer 1

Rainbows are formed by the refraction and reflection of sunlight in raindrops, resulting in an arc of dispersed colors visible when the observer has their back to the sun. Secondary rainbows can occur with two reflections inside the drop, creating a fainter arc with reversed colors.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Phenomenon of Rainbows

Rainbows are a thrilling visual phenomenon that result from the dispersion of sunlight by raindrops. When sunlight encounters a raindrop, it is refracted, or bent, as it passes from air into the more dense water, and then reflected on the inside surface of the drop. Each color of light is refracted by a slightly different amount, with blue and violet bending more than red. This leads to a spread of colors emerging in different directions, which is why a rainbow appears as an arc across the sky to an observer positioned with their back to the sun. If sunlight undergoes two reflections inside the raindrop, a secondary rainbow is formed, which is fainter and has colors in the reverse order compared to the primary rainbow. The arc shape of rainbows arises because the observer's eye must be at the precise angle with respect to the incoming rays of sunlight to see the refracted light; this angle is specific for each color forming the rainbow's arc.

Answer 2

Rainbow is mainly caused when light hits the tinu raindrops and reflects from the surface of those drops. The raindops actually works as a prism by separating the different bands of light that are present within the white sunlight. We continuously see the raindrops because one drop of rain is quickly replaced by another and this causes a continuous effect. The angle between the incoming light and the reflected light is 4o degrees for violet band and 42 degrees for the red band. The angle of bending is always different for different colors of light.