Rainbow Facts for Kids

19 Rainbow Facts For Kids

1. A rainbow is a colorful optical phenomenon that typically appears in the sky.
2. Rainbows are created by dispersion, reflection, and refraction of light in water droplets in the atmosphere.
3. Rainbows have seven colors that are visible to the human eye: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet.
4. An easy way to remember the color order of a rainbow is to use the mnemonic ROY-G-BIV.
5. The shape of a rainbow is a circle, but from the surface they appear to have an arc shape.
6. You cannot physically touch a rainbow, it’s only an optical illusion caused by light and water droplets in the atmosphere.
7. Since rainbows are based on a single person’s viewpoint no two people see the exact same rainbow.
8. Rainbows are unique to Earth, no other planet in our Solar System have the ingredients (sunlight and raindrops) to create a rainbow.
9. There are several different types of rainbows, including but not limited to primary rainbow, double rainbow, twinned rainbow, full-circle rainbow, supernumerary rainbow and reflected rainbow.
10. A primary rainbow is the most common rainbow you see in the sky. It’s a single rainbow, with red on the top and violet on the bottom of the arc.
11. A double rainbow is when two rainbows appear at the same time, a primary rainbow, and a secondary rainbow. The difference between the two rainbows is the secondary rainbow has its color order reversed, violet on top and red on the bottom of the arc.
12. A twinned rainbow is when two rainbows appear at the same time, a primary rainbow, and a secondary rainbow. Unlike the double rainbow, both rainbows in a twinned rainbow have the same color order.
13. A full-circle rainbow is a rainbow that is viewed from an observation point where you can see the rainbow’s full circle instead of an arc. Technically, all rainbows are circle shaped, but when viewed from the ground they appeared arced.
14. A supernumerary rainbow is a rainbow that appears to have several other rainbows right below it or behind it.
15. A reflected rainbow is a rainbow that appears over a body of water and the reflection of that rainbow is seen in the water.
16. The rarest rainbow is a moonbow, a rainbow that occurs at night and uses moonlight instead of the Sun.
17. The world record for the longest lasting rainbow observation was 8 hours and 58 minutes on November 30th, 2017, in Yangmingshan, Chinese Taipei.
18. The rainbow is used on several different flags to represent movements. For example, the LGBTQ movement has used the rainbow flag since 1978. Since the late 19th century, the Buddhist flag has used a rainbow.
19. One of the best places to see rainbows is in Hawaii, USA, specifically the island of Kauai.

Rainbow Pictures

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the below images will be helpful for your research on rainbows. Below are three pictures of different types of rainbows. These pictures should help you better understand a few of the different types of rainbows.

A picture of a primary rainbow over a grassy hill.

A picture of a double rainbow over a field.

A picture of a twinned rainbow over the mountains.