How is a rainbow formed? Why does a rainbow appear? A rainbow is the opposite of that.

Our sky is unique and beautiful. In the morning, it cheers us up with its bright and light tones, and in the evening its warm colors affect us peacefully and soothingly.
Sometimes so unusual and beautiful phenomena appear in the sky that you want to enjoy for hours. Some of these phenomena are very rare or occur only in certain areas of the globe. We suggest you take a look at the images of the most magnificent unique phenomena that can be seen in heaven.

This beautiful phenomenon is one of the few that we can observe every day. But there are days when the dawn in the sky looks so amazing that looking at it just takes your breath away. Here's how, for example, in this photo. And how does such beauty appear in the sky? In fact, the variety of colors at sunset and at dawn from pink and red to yellow and brown depends on how our sun shines, namely on the length of its rays. At sunset or sunrise, only a part of the rays is visible to us, so we can admire such magnificence. The brightness of dawn is affected by the amount of vapor and dust particles in the atmosphere: the more there are, the more saturated the color of dawn.

An emerald ray that looks like something magical is a tremendous rarity. It can be seen in the absence of fog and clouds. At sunrise, this is the first ray of sunshine. Often a greenish ray can be seen above the sea. It looks like a green flashlight. Unfortunately, the duration of this phenomenon is very short - just a couple of seconds. But you can increase the observation time of this most beautiful phenomenon: climb a mountain or move along the deck of a ship with a certain speed. Thus, the American pilot Richard Byrd, during his stay at the South Pole, saw a greenish ray for 35 minutes. As soon as he noticed him, he immediately directed his plane along the horizon, thereby increasing the time for observing this unusual phenomenon. Since ancient times, the green ray has fascinated people. In the drawings of ancient Egypt, you can see the sun with green rays. There is a sign in Scotland: "If you saw a green ray, then you are lucky in love."

Pargelium is another extraordinary mesmerizing phenomenon, one of the varieties of halo (a luminous ring around the sun). Pargelium is like a bright rainbow spot at sun level. The appearance of this amazing phenomenon is due to the fact that refraction of light occurs in ice crystals at an altitude of 5-10 km. Light spots may also appear on the pargelic circle.

You can see two suns in the sky in the cold season, when many ice floes form in the air. The light of the sun falls on ice crystals, while being reflected from them, as in a mirror. And then the illusion of the second sun arises. It was as if the luminary drew itself, showed a self-portrait. In ancient times, people did not know that additional suns are just a reflection in the sky. They were scared of this phenomenon. At the poles of our planet, you can observe three, and sometimes as many as eight suns.

The appearance of a rainbow in the sky always brings joy. After all, she is very beautiful and completely harmless, like a thunderstorm or lightning. The rainbow does not touch the ground, begins about two kilometers from the soil. But there is a rainbow and four meters from the ground and even on the grass or in the fountain.

It happens that two rainbows appear in the sky at once. In this case, they say that you can make a wish, and it will come true. We see more than one rainbow, as light is reflected off the rain twice. It reverses the order of the spectrum.

An inverted rainbow is a true natural masterpiece. In this case, an anti-aircraft arc is visible in the sky, which arose during a certain weather. Light falls on the clouds, reflected in the ice. The color of the spectrum goes in the opposite order: red - at the bottom, and purple - at the top. This phenomenon occurs at the North and South Pole.

A fiery rainbow (or an ice halo) is a very rare occurrence in nature. It occurs, as a rule, in the summer. At the same time, a number of conditions must be observed: the sun's rays must be located at a certain height, reflected from crystal ice in the sky, plus cirrus clouds are needed. Then round-horizontal arcs arise that shimmer with colorful colors and give us an amazing landscape.

Aurora borealis can be observed in the polar regions (usually in spring or autumn). Thanks to this phenomenon, it becomes light at night, like during the day. Often, the aurora takes the form of a cloud, strip, or spot. Like a real masterpiece, it looks like a ribbon, resembling a curtain in the sky. Aurora appears due to disturbances of the sun, which, as we know, constantly rages and burns. The fiery particles of the sun reaching the Earth form a glow in the sky, emitting a huge amount of energy.

Clouds of silver color occur at the onset of deep dusk. This is a rather rare phenomenon that can be seen only in the summer in the northern latitudes. These formations are formed quite high - at an altitude of 70-95 km. They are also called mesospheric. Similar clouds can also appear on other planets, for example, on Mars.

Sometimes in the sky next to the sun there are amazing images, charming outlines created from clouds of various shapes. It happens that you can see a castle in the sky or huge pillars appear, similar to an inverted tornado. For the occurrence of such clouds, there must be certain weather conditions. Gross clouds appear with thunderstorms at the right amount of moisture, when there is a movement of cold air under warm. During a storm, the wind changes direction and rolls clouds into tubes.

The appearance of a mirage occurs in the case of refraction of light. We see an image that does not actually exist. Such a phenomenon can be met in a desert area or during extreme heat. In this case, the light beam deviates from its path and refracts, so we see imaginary mirages.

The lights of St. Elmo are a bright glow, the accumulation of electrical discharge that occurs in a thunderstorm. You can see these lights on the shafts and masts of ships, near an airplane flying through a cloud, and also on the tops of mountains. According to legend, the lights of St. Elm appeared when St. Elm died during a storm with a thunderstorm. Before his death, he promised to help the sailors, giving signals about whether they were destined to be saved during the storm. Now the appearance of these lights is considered a good sign, as this means the patronage of St. Elmo.

My friend, have you ever dreamed of walking on a rainbow and getting into a fairyland? My mood always improves when I see this very beautiful natural phenomenon. Today I will answer you the question "How is a rainbow formed?"

Once upon a time, people considered the rainbow dear to Heaven and believed that it was possible to get to the World of the Gods.

Now the rainbow has its own scientific explanation. After the rain, some droplets hang in the air, never reaching the ground. The rays of the sun fall on raindrops and, reflected from them, as if from a mirror, being scientifically refracted, become multi-colored.

My friend, did you hear the saying: “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits”? The first letter of each word also indicates the order of colors in an amazing and very beautiful natural phenomenon that you learned about today: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Blue, Purple.

For the first time, the colors of the rainbow were distinguished by the scientist Newton. True, at first he identified only five colors - red, yellow, green, blue and violet. But later I also saw an orange color. However, the number 6 in those days was considered somehow not very good, and the scientist added a blue tint to the spectrum. Seven - a number equal to the number of notes of the musical scale, seemed to Newton very pretty. So they left it, although in fact the colors in the rainbow smoothly pass into each other through many intermediate shades.

As far as scientists know, not a single living creature in the world, except humans, is able to see the rainbow. And yet she is. You can see a rainbow only if you are strictly between the sun (it should be behind) and rain (it should be in front of you). Otherwise, you can’t see the rainbow!

It always arises where the rays of the sun meet droplets of water. For example, at waterfalls, fountains. Or you can make the curtain of drops yourself from a hand-held sprayer and, standing with your back to the sun, see a rainbow created by your own hands.

Have you noticed that the rainbow is different in color saturation? It depends on the size of the droplets: the larger they are, the brighter the rainbow. If a rainbow appears in the morning or in the evening (when the Sun is not far from the horizon), then it will be large, if in the afternoon (the star is high), it will be small.

A rainbow can be observed not only during the day, but also at night, in cirrus clouds and even during fog. And in its entirety you can only see while on the plane or on a high mountain. And then it turns out that in fact the rainbow has an absolutely round shape, since the earth's surface completely prevents it from seeing. And all because a drop having a spherical shape and illuminated by a beam of parallel sunlight can only create a circle.

Inverted rainbow

Have you ever encountered a rare phenomenon of nature - an inverted rainbow? This phenomenon is quite rare. It appears under certain conditions, when cirrus clouds consisting of ice crystals are located in a thin veil at an altitude of 7-8 kilometers. Sunlight, falling at a certain angle on these crystals, decomposes into a spectrum and is reflected in the atmosphere. The color in the inverted rainbow is in the reverse order: purple is on top and red is on the bottom.

Double Rainbow

We already know that a rainbow in the sky comes from the fact that the rays of the sun penetrate through raindrops, are refracted and reflected on the other side of the sky with a colorful arc. And sometimes a sunbeam can make two, three, or even four rainbows in the sky at once. A double rainbow is obtained when a light beam is reflected from the inner surface of the raindrops twice.

The first rainbow, the inner one, is always brighter than the second, the outer one, and the colors of the arcs on the second rainbow are located in mirror reflection and less bright. To see a double rainbow is a good omen - it is for luck, for the fulfillment of desires. So if you are lucky enough to see a double rainbow, hurry to make a wish, and it will certainly come true.

Is there a rainbow without rain?

A rainbow can be observed on a sunny, clear day near waterfalls, fountains, in the garden when watering flowers from a hose, pinching the hole in the hose with your fingers, creating a haze of water and directing the hose towards the Sun.

I suggest you watch the video and find out what will happen if a ray of white light passes through a glass prism, and who was the first to do such an experiment?

"Why is there a rainbow?"

Material prepared by Nadezhda Danilova

- This photo I took on September 10 at about six in the evening in Durlesti, - told "Komsomolka" Vadim. - There was no rain, not a cloud in the sky. And suddenly in the east, where the sun rises, an inverted rainbow appeared. It consisted of three colors: red, yellow and blue. About ten people observed this unusual phenomenon. The woman who stood next to us said: “This sign is the appearance of Christ to the people. I read in the Bible that the Lord will manifest himself from east to west and everyone will see him. ” The rainbow hung for about forty minutes, then disappeared.

We decided to find out from experts whether it is often possible to observe an inverted rainbow in the sky.

- No, It is Immpossible! - the head of the State Hydrometeorological Service of Moldova Ilya Boyan was categorical. - Most likely, this is an optical illusion or ordinary photo montage.

WHERE ANOTHER OBSERVED RAINBOW OBSERVED

In Los Angeles, in Cambridge (a local astronomer photographed an unusual rainbow), in Sussex in the same Great Britain, in Tyumen, in St. Petersburg over the Tikhvin Monastery, in the city of Layan in eastern China, over Tomsk ...

It is impossible to see the Sun and the rainbow at the same time without using mirrors. Inverted rainbows, experts say, are extremely rare and only near large bodies of water - sun rays reflected from water can “turn” a rainbow. Other conditions are also necessary, which scientists cannot articulate clearly. For the occurrence of this phenomenon, neither rain nor clouds necessary for the appearance of an ordinary rainbow are needed - an arc equal in length to a quarter of a circle appears in a clear blue sky in the presence of ice crystals. An inverted rainbow appears only when the sun shines at a certain angle through a thin veil of cirrus clouds at an altitude of about 6000-7500 meters. According to scientists, in most cases, an inverted rainbow is in the sky no longer than half an hour. Traditionally, this natural phenomenon can be observed by residents of countries with a cold climate, where a huge amount of ice crystals gather in the sky. We can say that eyewitnesses from Moldova were lucky.

What does an inverted rainbow mean?

It is believed that a rainbow, especially unusual, is a success. Many believe that such a phenomenon is a sign from above. It was considered a good omen to see a rainbow, to pass or pass under it boded happiness and success. The ancient Greeks believed that the rainbow is a bridge to the sky, and the Irish believed that at the other end of the rainbow is the legendary gold of leprechauns.

- A rainbow is God's covenant to people,  - explains to "Komsomolka" a member of the diocesan commission on censorship and book publishing, Archimandrite Nicodemus. - After the flood, a rainbow appeared in the sky. This is a good sign. And the inverted rainbow is already a human symbol, it does not mean anything, in any case, nothing wrong.

And the romantics have dubbed the inverted rainbow "smile of the sun" and decided that this is a very good sign.

A colored rainbow does not exist, since it is only an illusion that only seems to us. As far as scientists know, not a single living creature in the world, except man, is able to see it. And yet she is.

It is seen by people living on one side or another of the globe, on islands or continents, on the ground or flying in the air. A bright, colorful rainbow appears before the eyes of enthusiastic spectators, when small droplets of rain still fall to the ground, and the sun is behind them - and creates an amazing picture, giving everyone joy. That's why they called it that - rainbow.

Since ancient times, mankind has thought about the nature of this phenomenon and why, rainbow and rain are so connected with each other. Therefore, it is not surprising that a huge number of the most diverse stories and legends are associated with it, most of which are extremely optimistic.

In the Old Testament. God gave people this amazing phenomenon as a symbol of the inviolability of his Word. And He promised Noah and his family that people would never see the Flood again.

For the ancient Greeks. According to ancient Greek myths, a messenger of the gods Irida descended from heaven to earth along a rainbow to people.

The ancient Chinese. For the Chinese, the rainbow was a celestial dragon, which meant the union of Heaven with Earth.

The great Slavs. Our ancestors believed that this amazing phenomenon serves as a magic bridge. Angels descend on it, collect water from the rivers, and then pour it into the clouds - after that they irrigate everything around with life-giving rain. Here, rainbow and rain are closely interconnected.

Rainbow for the superstitious. Interestingly, not everyone thought that the appearance of this amazing natural phenomenon was good. Some believed that the appearance of a rainbow brings misfortune.  If only because according to it the souls of dead people pass into the realm of the dead, which means its appearance signals someone’s near death.

Rainbow and folk signs. Naturally, folk signs also could not get around this atmospheric phenomenon - people, focusing on it, tried to predict the weather. For example, if the rainbow was located high and was more curved, it means that the weather will be good, if the multi-colored arc was low and turned out to be stretched, you can prepare for inclement weather.

What is an enchanting sight

It will be interesting to learn that this amazing phenomenon can be observed not only during the day, but also at night, in cirrus clouds and even during fog. At the same time, from the earth she appears before us in the form of an arch. And you can see it in its entirety only when, during its appearance, we are in an airplane, a helicopter, an airplane, or on a very high mountain.

And then it turns out that in fact the rainbow has an absolutely round shape, since the earth's surface completely prevents it from seeing. And all because a drop having a spherical shape and illuminated by a beam of parallel sunlight can only create a circle.

Sunny

The solar rainbow is the brightest of them all and it is her that we see most often. It consists of a huge number of flowers. The basic shades of this phenomenon are quite easy to remember, because many poems and sayings were invented specially for this, the first letters of which are encoded in the colors of the rainbow:

1. Each is Red (basic, it cannot be obtained by mixing colors);
2. Hunter - Orange (optional - can be obtained by mixing primary colors);
3. Desires - Yellow (main);
4. Know - Green (optional);
5. Where - Blue (optional);
6. Sits - Blue (main);
7. Pheasant - Violet (optional).

Despite the fact that we believe that we see only these seven colors of the rainbow, in fact, the spectrum is absolutely continuous - and our eye distinguishes more than one and a half hundred shades. And all because there is no clear line between these colors - and the same color (white) smoothly passes into another through all the shades.

Lunar

Theoretically, a moon rainbow can be seen everywhere. But in practice, it is most often observed by residents of rainy areas or living near large waterfalls.

It is not as bright as the sun, you can see it on the opposite side of the moon from the moon during the full moon (plus or minus a few nights).

The night star should be low above the horizon, the sky should be almost black and, of course, it should drizzle rain on the other side of the moon. Even parallels, rain and rainbow (if it rains, then it is likely to see a rainbow), rainbow and rain (if a rainbow appears, the weather may change).

The colors of the moon rainbow are not easy to see - its light is too weak for our eyes. Therefore, if we are lucky enough to notice it with the naked eye with the latest technology, then we will see only an arc of white color.

Foggy

Sometimes a foggy rainbow is confused with a moonlight, because it usually looks like a bright, shining wide white arch. From the inside, it can be slightly purple, from the outside - orange.

It can be seen when the sun's rays are in a weak fog, which consists of tiny water droplets (25 microns), which refract and scatter white light. The smaller they are, the rainbow is whiter, because the light beams in this case mix, first become faded, and then completely discolored.

Fiery

Fire rainbow is an extremely rare phenomenon.It is absolutely horizontal and peeps out from under the cirrus clouds, which are located at a great height - 8-9 km above sea level.

You can watch it only from the ground, while the daylight should be at an angle exceeding 58 °, in the sky - float cirrus clouds, which consist of hexagonal ice crystals and are exactly at that moment that are horizontal (so that the rays of the Sun can freely refract).

Inverted

An equally rare natural phenomenon is an inverted rainbow. Cirrus clouds are also needed for its appearance. Only ice crystals should line up at the right degree so that the sun's white rays can decompose into different colors and reflect in the sky.

Appearance

A bright, colorful arch appears mainly either before or after rain, because rainbow and rain are connected to each other. In this case, the sun (moon) rays must necessarily penetrate through the clouds, the luminary is behind the back of a person, and drizzling rain - in front. If the rainbow appears in the morning or in the evening (when the sun is not far from the horizon), then it will be large, if in the afternoon (the star is high) - small.

Why exactly does this natural phenomenon occur, the first Descartes explained in the early 17th century. In his time, they still did not know that white is capable of decaying into different colors. Because of this, the rainbow of the scientist turned out to be snow-white.

Newton painted it, revealing the variance and explaining this process of nature.

If we talk briefly about this phenomenon, it can be explained as an optical phenomenon that occurs when the rays of a celestial body are refracted and reflected in a huge amount (often reaching up to a million) of raindrops, and then rain and rainbow are visible to the human eye.

1. White rays pass through raindrops (or foggy).
2. Each droplet is a kind of prism (a body of transparent substance bounded by two non-parallel planes, due to which light is refracted).
3. This prism has excellent optical properties, which is why it successfully decomposes white light into the colors of which it consists, and thereby forms a beam of diverging multi-colored rays. Thus, it can be argued that each individual drop of water is a kind of small rainbow.
4. Multi-colored rays emerge from the prism at different angles (it is worth remembering that the surface of the drop is a curve). For example, the angle of red is 137 ° 30 ’, purple - 139 ° 20’, the rest between them. The color is influenced by the length of the light wave - in red it is the longest, in violet - short.
5. As a result of this, the white color, which contains absolutely all colors except black, completely disintegrates and forms a multi-colored strip.
6. Quite often, near one rainbow, you can often notice another second, or even a few pieces, though not as bright as the main one. These are secondary rainbows, which can be seen when the light in one droplet beats twice. The colors in such arches are placed on the contrary - purple on top and red in the middle.

If someone is constantly unlucky, and he almost never can see this natural phenomenon with his own eyes, you should not despair, because everyone can create a rainbow independently. This raises the question of how to make a rainbow.

Option 1. The easiest

Take a glass prism, a sheet of white paper and go out to the Sun. Turn your back to him and place the prism so that light falls through it onto the sheet. The rainbow is ready! Moving the prism away and away from the paper, you can increase or decrease the multi-colored miracle.

Option 2. With water-1

In this case, a glass of water filled by three quarters will act as a prism. Next you need to act, as in the first embodiment. As a result, you will get rain and rainbow.

Option 2. With water-2

Take a bowl, fill it with water, find a white sheet of paper and a small mirror. Put the bowl in the sun, lower the mirror into the water, dull it to the edge of the dishes and turn it so that light rays fall on it. After that, you need to move the sheet of paper along the bowl in search of a place where a rainbow will be displayed on it.

Option 3. With a CD

You can see the rainbow using the disc. This is due to the fact that its surface has a huge number of grooves that play the role of small prisms.

It is necessary to approach the illuminated window, close it with a curtain so that there remains a small clearance for the light rays. Take the disk and place it so that sunlight hits it, after which you need to reflect the beam using the disk on cardboard. If you tilt the disc in different directions, you can get both a rainbow strip and a circular rainbow. If you use a flashlight instead of the Sun, the colors of the rainbow will be less saturated.

Option 4. For extreme people who like to swear with neighbors and make repairs

In this experiment, both rainbow and rain will be present. In the largest room, install a flashlight with a power of 500 watts and turn it on. Take a garden hose, bring water to the lamp, put a garden watering gun on the hose and set it to spray. Turn on the water, and then bring the gun closer to the flashlight, but do not fill it. In a few minutes you will have not only rainbow and rain, but the audience - the neighbors from below, who will definitely appreciate your resourcefulness!

  What is a rainbow?

A rainbow is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that occurs when the sun illuminates many water droplets during rain or fog, or after rain. As a result of the refraction of the sun's rays in drops of water during rain, a multicolored arc appears in the sky.

A rainbow also arises in the reflected rays of the Sun from the water surface of sea bays, lakes, waterfalls or large rivers. Such a rainbow appears on the banks of ponds and looks unusually beautiful.

The arcs of the rainbow are colorful, but in order for them to appear, sunlight is needed. Sunlight seems white to us, but actually consists of the colors of the spectrum. We are used to distinguish seven colors in a rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, violet, but since the spectrum is continuous, the colors smoothly pass into each other through many shades.

A multi-colored arc appears because a ray of light is refracted in droplets of water, and then, returning to the observer at an angle of 42 degrees, it splits into components from red to purple.

The brightness of the shades and the width of the rainbow depend on the size of the raindrops. The larger the droplets, the narrower and brighter the rainbow, the more red there is in saturated color. If it rains lightly, then the rainbow is wide, but with faded orange and yellow edges.

What a rainbow is

Most often we see a rainbow in the form of an arc, but an arc is only part of the rainbow. The rainbow has the shape of a circle, but we observe only half of the arc, because its center is on the same line with our eyes and the Sun. A whole rainbow can only be seen at high altitude, from an airplane or from a high mountain.

  Double Rainbow

We already know that a rainbow in the sky comes from the fact that the rays of the sun penetrate through raindrops, are refracted and reflected on the other side of the sky with a colorful arc. And sometimes a sunbeam can make two, three, or even four rainbows in the sky at once. A double rainbow is obtained when a light beam is reflected from the inner surface of the raindrops twice.

The first rainbow, the inner, is always brighter than the second, the outer, and the colors of the arcs on the second rainbow are mirrored and less bright. The sky between the rainbows is always darker than other parts of the sky. The stretch of sky between two rainbows is called the Alexander strip. To see a double rainbow is a good omen, it is to luck, to the fulfillment of desires. So if you are lucky enough to see a double rainbow, hurry to make a wish and it will certainly come true.

Inverted rainbow

An inverted rainbow is quite rare. It appears under certain conditions, when at a height of 7-8 kilometers a thin veil are cirrus clouds consisting of ice crystals. Sunlight, falling at a certain angle on these crystals, decomposes into a spectrum and is reflected in the atmosphere. The color in the inverted rainbow is in the reverse order: purple is on top and red is on the bottom.

Misty rainbow

A misty rainbow or white appears when illuminated by the rays of the sun in a weak fog, consisting of very small droplets of water. Such a rainbow is an arc painted in very pale colors, and if the droplets are very small, then the rainbow is painted white. A foggy rainbow can also appear at night during fog, when there is a bright moon in the sky. A foggy rainbow is a fairly rare atmospheric phenomenon.

Moon rainbow

A lunar rainbow or night rainbow appears at night and is generated by the moon. The lunar rainbow is observed during the rain that goes opposite the moon, the lunar rainbow is especially clearly visible during the full moon, when the bright moon is not high in the dark sky. Also, the moon rainbow can be observed in areas where there are waterfalls.

Fire rainbow

A fiery rainbow is a rare optical atmospheric phenomenon. A fiery rainbow appears when sunlight passes through cirrus clouds at an angle of 58 degrees above the horizon. Another necessary condition for the appearance of a fire rainbow are hexagonal ice crystals having the shape of a sheet and their faces should be parallel to the ground. The sun's rays, passing through the vertical faces of an ice crystal, are refracted and light a fire rainbow or a round-horizontal arc, as the fire rainbow is called in science.

Winter rainbow

Is there a rainbow without rain?

A rainbow can also be observed on a sunny, clear day near waterfalls, fountains, in the garden when watering flowers from a hose, pinching the hole in the hose with your fingers, creating a haze of water and directing the hose toward the Sun.

How to remember the colors of the rainbow

If you cannot remember how the colors are arranged in the rainbow, the phrase known to everyone from childhood will help you: “ TO  every ABOUT  hotnik F  barks 3  nat G  de FROM  is going F  Adhan. "