CHAPTER 1 DROPS IN THE AIR It’s a warm summer day Rain has been falling for an hour Puddles cover the ground Finally the rain stops The sun peeks out from behind the clouds Bright colors appear in the air They paint the sky with colored stripes This stunning sight is a rainbow A rainbow reflects in a puddle on the ground 5
A rainbow has a curved shape A rainbow is an arc of colors that forms in the sky Rainbows happen when the sun shines through tiny drops of water A rainbow has seven stripes Its colors always appear in the same order The top stripe is red The second stripe is orange Yellow green and blue are next Then comes indigo The bottom stripe is violet 6
An easy way to remember the colors of the rainbow is the name ROY G BIV Rainbows need two things to form First there must be water droplets in the air Second there must be light to shine through them A rainbow can happen in any place that has both of these things WHAT SHAPE IS A RAINBOW When most people think of rainbows they imagine a half circle of colored light But rainbows are actually complete circles People rarely see all of this shape This is because most people view rainbows while standing on the ground These viewers can see only the part of the rainbow that is above the horizon However a person looking down on a rainbow from an airplane could see the whole circle 7
