Question: how does a rainbow form

Jess Wade answered on 17 Jun 2015:

Rainbows form when light from the sun hits into rain drops at certain angles. I love rainbows! When I was at university learning physics I learnt lots about them. They form because light from the sun is white, and contains a mixture of every single colour (red, yellow, purple, blue, green- you name it!).
When a beam of white sunlight comes to earth, it hits the rain drops and slows down. Light slows down when it hits the rain drops because it is wobbling all the llittle parts inside the raindrop (the different molecules and the electrons). Light is so busy making the drop wobble it doesn’t remember to move as fast, so it slows down and starts to bend. All the different colours of light bend a little bit differently because they all have slightly different energies- so the red stripe comes out on the top, thn the orange light, then the yellow light, then the green light.

I’ve tried so hard to find the pot of gold, but I’ve never been lucky!