A stunning double rainbow appeared over Ron Wilson’s neighbourhood in Trail on Monday afternoon, providing an eye-catching reminder of just how magical science can look.
But what exactly makes a rainbow, let alone two?
It all starts with sunlight, which seems white but is actually a mix of all the colours in the visible spectrum.
When sunlight hits a raindrop, it bends (a process called refraction), and each colour bends a little differently.
This causes the light to split into its individual hues of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Next, the light reflects off the inside of the raindrop and bends again as it exits.
This second bend is what sends those separate colours back toward your eyes.
Because of the angles involved, about 42 degrees for the main rainbow, you see an arc with red on the outside and violet on the inside.
The conditions have to be just right: sun behind you, raindrops in front, and the light at just the right angle.
In this photo, there’s an added bonus: a second, fainter rainbow above the first.
That’s caused by light reflecting twice inside the raindrop.
It flips the colour order and appears at a wider angle, around 50 to 53 degrees.
The darker band between the two is called Alexander’s band, where less light is scattered.
And here’s another interesting point: no two people see the same rainbow.
Since the angles depend on your line of sight, every rainbow is a personal show.
So the vibrant double rainbow over Trail isn’t just pretty, it a display of physics in action, right in your backyard.
