Task 3: The Physics of Rainbows and Sky Color

Brian Parton

December 15, 2016

Physics: Waves and Optics (BZT2)

Regardless of ones level of scientific knowledge, we all have an innate curiosity of the world
around us. Oftentimes, when children become old enough to ask questions, some of the most popular
questions they might have involve natural phenomena that they see every day. Undoubtedly, two of
the most popular questions that a child might ask would be, How do rainbows form? and Why is the
sky blue? These questions can actually be fully and clearly addressed by applying basic principles of
physics.

First, the question of How do rainbows form? will be addressed. Rainbows are formed in the
sky by a unique combination of dispersion, refraction, and reflection. Dispersion involves the separation
of white light into its constituent components, which appear to our eyes as the colors of the visible
spectrum. Each color of light is representative of a different frequency of light. These colors are, in
order from lowest to highest frequency, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Not
coincidentally, these are also the colors that make up a rainbow or the colors dispersed from light shone
through a prism. But dispersion of light does not just happen on its own. For light to disperse, it is
necessary for the light to travel from one medium to another different medium. This is where rain
comes in.

When rays of sunlight hit the individual rain drops, refraction and reflection of these rays occur.
First, the ray of light is refracted as it passes from the air into the drop of water. Refraction is the
process of light bending due to a change of its speed as it passes from one medium to another. Light
moves at a slower speed in water than it does through air, so the light ray naturally bends in order to
find a quicker way through the medium of the raindrop. It is during the process of refraction that the
ray of sunlight begins to be dispersed into its constituent colors. This occurs be cause each of the colors
has a different frequency and different frequencies are refracted at slightly different angles. The higher
frequency colors, violet being the highest, are refracted at greater angles, while the lower frequency
colors, red being the lowest, are refracted at more shallow angles. At this point, one more event needs
to occur in order for a visible rainbow to appear. The refracted light rays are then reflected against the
back inside surface of the raindrop at an angle equal to the angle at which they originally struck. These
light rays are then sent back in the opposite direction towards the front inside surface of the raindrop,
where they are refracted a second time as they pass from the medium of the raindrop back into the
medium of the air. This process is illustrated below in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Of course, in order for there to be a rainbow, someone must be able to view it. This is a unique
feature of a rainbow. What we view as a rainbow is actually a series of reflections of light highly specific
to our individual location. In order to view a rainbow, the sun must be directly behind us, shining
towards the raindrops failing through the sky. It is only from this vantage point that the light reflected
from the raindrops as described earlier will reflect back to our eyes. The colors we see in the rainbow
are actually the light being reflected back at a certain angle to us. Visible light is reflected from
raindrops at angles between 40 and 42. The light that is reflected back to our eyes at 40 is the highest
frequency light, seen as violet, which makes up the inner band of the rainbow. Light reflected back to us
at 42 is the lowest frequency light, seen as red, which makes up the outer band of the rainbow. Ev ery
color we see between these two bands is the rest of the constituent colors of the visible spectrum of
light, moving from higher to lower frequency as you move outward in the rainbow. The reflected light
that creates a rainbow is completely dependent on our own perspective. If we move, the colors we see
will be reflected from a different area of the sky than where we were previously. It all depends on our
ability to situate ourselves so that the reflected sunlight from the individual water droplets hi ts us at
angles between 40 and 42 of incidence with regard to the inner back surface of the raindrops. The
rainbow is not itself a static object. The overall schematics of a rainbow are illustrated in Figure 2.
 Figure 2

The second question to address is, Why is the sky blue? This can be answered by defining
what it means for light rays to be scattered. When light rays from the sun enter our atmosphere, they
encounter the various particles that make up the atmosphere, mostly gaseous molecules of nitrogen
and oxygen. When light encounters these particles, a certain amount of that light is absorbed and then
reemitted, or scattered, back into the air in all directions. This type of scattering of light is known as
Rayleigh scattering. The amount of light that is reemitted is dependent on its frequency. Smaller
particles, such as nitrogen and oxygen, tend to scatter higher frequency light, while lower frequency
light is not scattered nearly as much. The highest frequency light would be seen by our eyes as the color
violet. However, our eyes are not particularly sensitive to violet light, so we predominantly see the sky
as the next highest frequency color, blue. This process is illustrated in Figure 3. If there were no
atmosphere at all on Earth, there would be no particles to scatter the visible light from the sun and we
would only see the darkness of space and the stars alongside the light of the sun. This is, in fact,
precisely the view of the sky that astronauts experienced from the surface of the moon, since the moon
does not have an atmosphere. So, it is the microscopic particles present in our atmosphere and the
particular way they reemit sunlight that is responsible for the color we see when we look at the sky.
 Figure 3

There are, of course, variations on a clear, blue sky that can also be explained using physics. A
sky characterized by a deep blue color will have a minimum amount of water vapor or other particles
larger than nitrogen or oxygen. When a greater amount of water vapor or other larger particles are
present, low frequency light will also be widely scattered along with the high frequency light, giving the
sky more of a washed-out white color. This effect can be amplified by pollutants in the air, scattering
even more low frequency light, creating a haze. Particles from pollutants can even become so large that
they primarily absorb sunlight, rather than reemit it, resulting in brownish smog filling the sky.

Another widely seen variation of a blue sky is the sky at sunset. As long as the sky is not
completely covered with clouds, it will take on a more orange and red tint towards sunset. This is also
due to the process of light being scattered by the particles in our atmosphere. The difference is that,
because light is striking the surface of Earth at a more indirect angle at sunset than at midday, light has a
farther distance to travel through the atmosphere. As light travels through the atmosphere, a greater
amount of high frequency light is completely scattered away from the visible light rays, leaving the lower
frequency colors of red and orange to dominate our vision.