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rainbows
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During
its passage through the atmosphere, sunlight is reflected, refracted,
and scattered by water droplets, ice crystals and atmospheric
dust. A rainbow is the result of millions of raindrops acting
like tiny prisms. They split sunlight into the colours of the
spectrum and reflect them to the viewer’s eye. As the sunlight
enters and leaves a raindrop it is refracted (bent). This refraction
splits the light into its component colours: red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet.
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halos
and sundogs |
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Halos
around the Sun are the result of light being reflected and refracted
by ice crystals in thin high-level clouds. In addition to circular
halos, ice crystals can also produce various arcs (partial circles
like rainbows) and parhelia (also called mock-suns or sun-dogs).
Bright moonlight can also produce halos and paraselenae (mock-moons).
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