Why is the sky inside the rainbow brighter than outside?

laia de la torre murillo

institut el cairat – esparreguera

This project is based on the question ‘why is the sky brighter inside a rainbow than outside?’ by Tomas Molina.

To explain this topic first we looked at how a rainbow is formed. The sunlight gets into raindrops and because of this, there are two processes given: the refraction and the reflection. Therefore, these processes modify the sunlight’s trajectory and depending on which is the final angle one colour is generated. So, at the end a rainbow will be formed.

I explain that fact in order to make the answer of Tomas Molina easier. However, because of those angles the light can’t be bigger than 42 degrees apart from the appearance that we have, what we call visible spectrum.

For all these aspects, light is concentrated inside the rainbow.