Question

What is a rainbow? Draw a labelled diagram to show the formation of a rainbow.

Answer 1

Hint:The rainbow is the arc of seven colours that is formed in the sky. This occurs mainly due to the refraction, dispersion and the total internal reflection of the sunlight inside the water droplet. This phenomenon represents the light through the prism.

Complete step by step answer:
Rainbow is the arch of the seven colours including violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and the red. This process mainly occurs when both the sunlight and the water droplets meet together. As we know, when t5he light enters the prism it splits into the seven colours which is known as spectrum. The similar process takes place in the rainbow formation. When the white light from the sun is made to pass through the water droplets mainly rain, it refracts into the water drop. Inside the drop, it splits into seven colours of light by the process of diffraction. The diffracted colours of light reflect inside the water drop by the process of total internal reflection. This makes the rainbow visible as the seven colours to the eyes.
Above image explains how the white light enters the water droplets and how it disperse and how it reflects inside the water drops.

Note:From the surface of the earth, the rainbow appears as the semicircular arc but when the rainbow is viewed from the flying aircraft at a larger height, the rainbow appears as the circle. The rainbow appears on the sky most of the time when the rain appears in the presence of sunlight.