• Question: is there an end to a rainbow ? (from leeanne)

    Asked by klbcharlie to Freya, Katy, Louise, Pamela on 17 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Pendry

      Louise Pendry answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Hey Leanne,

      You’re keen – twice today! 🙂

      Do you know I reckon you might know the answer to this better than me. Yesterday I would have thought the answer was yes because it looks like there is an end when you look at it from the ground. Then somebody asked me what a rainbow looked like from a plane. Apparently it looks like a circle. If its a circle then there is no end.
      So I am now totally confused 🙁

      Help. You are doing physics and its to do with light from the sun bouncing off of raindrops. I am guessing that because the sun is round the rainbow is round too. But that’s only my guess.

      Help me out here!

    • Photo: Pamela Docherty

      Pamela Docherty answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      I would say no. The rainbow doesn’t actually exist at a particular position in the sky, it just depends on the position of the observer and the position of the sun, and the raindrops reflect and refract the sun’s rays in just the right way so you experience a rainbow. So there is no end to a rainbow, and neither is there a start or a middle!

    • Photo: Freya Harrison

      Freya Harrison answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      I’ve never been lucky enough to see this, but if you see a rainbow from high up in the air then you can see that it’s actually a circle. So you need to be in a plane on a clear day, or beneath the clouds.

    • Photo: Katy Milne

      Katy Milne answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      No. A rainbow is actually a full circle and we can only see part of it. The rest is beyond the horizon. My dad is a pilot and he has seen the full rainbow. I saw three-quarters once when I was on a mountain in Scotland above the clouds. It is amazing.

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