ABC Listen.
Hi, my name is Ash.
And today on Imagine This.
Hey, that's my line.
Hello, my name is Lolly.
Hi, my name is Abby.
Hi, my name is Juliet.
Hi, I'm Rose.
My name's Apollo.
Hello, Madeline.
My name is Sadie.
Hi, I'm Moshi.
And we want to know... What is a rainbow made of?
Where do rainbows get their colours from?
Why does the rainbow shine when it's sunny and rainy?
How do rainbows form?
So Nidge, can you tell us?
Me?
Yeah.
It is a physics question.
And you're a physicist.
Yeah, that's what I studied.
So we're taking over.
Yeah.
What?
I'll be the host today and you can be the scientist.
Okay.
So, where to?
Our imaginations are ready.
Whoa, whoa, hang on a tick.
Why don't you tell me what you think first?
A rainbow is made, I think, with sun and the rain drops and like some paint, and then try and put it in the sky.
Hmm, interesting.
Colours come off butterflies and evaporate from plants.
That's a cool idea.
Rainbows are made from rain and sun.
You can see them when it's a sun shower because that's how a rainbow happens.
You see them in the sky.
Yeah.
Well, that's a good place to start.
Let's imagine ourselves high up in the sky.
Are we going to space?
Not that high.
We need rain.
So let's start in the clouds.
Yeah, let's go.
Oh, it's so cool up here.
The trees look like broccoli.
I can see the houses.
They look a bit smaller.
It looks like there's a fairy house there.
We can see people that are tiny as peas.
The reason we can see any of it is because of light.
Because the sun makes it bright enough to see.
It's hard to see in the dark.
Yeah.
We can see things because light bounces off them, and that light is coming back towards us and it's going into our eyes.
So I can see that river down there because the light is coming down from the sun, then hitting the water and coming back up straight to my eyeballs.
Basically, yeah.
Whoa.
It's like a spring that's in the line and that's how it bounces off into your eyes.
All sunlight is made of white light.
But it's not actually white.
It's made up of all the colours of the rainbow.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet and way more.
When paints mix up, it's different, because they turn into a dark brown colour which looks like chocolate.
Yeah, you're right.
But when we see a rainbow, we're seeing the white light separated out into all its different colours.
Cool.
How do we get it to split apart?
Because, like, it's not like concrete.
You wouldn't have to use a jackhammer to drill or something.
Magical jackhammer.
There are actually lots of different ways.
But for a rainbow, you need a raindrop.
Oh, right on time.
We're going to have to shrink down small enough to fit inside one little itty-bitty raindrop.
Are you ready?
Yep yeah, all right, here we go.
Whoa, it's like being inside a crystal ball.
Everything looks kind of bigger but droopy.
Ah, we're falling.
We're gonna have to freeze time for this part.
Yeah, we need to see what's happening, not fall.
With the other raindrops we'll just become a puddle.
Then someone might step on us.
When it rains, light starts bouncing around the rainforest.
Some of the light goes inside the raindrops.
And then something amazing happens.
Whoa!
The light's coming into the raindrop.
I can see it.
When the light moves from the air outside to inside the raindrop, it gets bent.
We call this refraction.
Refraction.
Refraction.
Refraction for the water.
Some of the colours inside the white light bend a little and some bend a lot, which makes the colours split up, opening out into a beautiful fan of colour.
Hey, I can see colours!
I can see red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and white.
It's all the colours!
Are the colours going straight through the water?
Not all of it.
Some of the light bounces off the back of the raindrops.
Ah, here it comes!
Look out!
And shoots out the front.
It's heading back towards the sun.
This is the start of the rainbow.
Cool.
Can we see it now?
It's hard to see from in here.
Come on, let's get out of this droplet and see what it looks like from outside.
Yeah, let's slide down this beam of orange light.
I reckon it'll take us all the way to the ground.
And there's a rainbow.
I see it.
Is that all coming from our little drop?
I thought you said it was too small to see.
Every drop is shining out its very own rainbow.
But from where we're standing, we're only seeing one colour from each drop.
When our eyes put it all together, With little bits of colour from a gazillion tiny raindrops, we can see all the colours of the rainbow.
Wow, that's amazing.
It's lovely.
There's so many colours.
There are.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
What's indigo?
Dark blue with a bit of purple.
Yeah.
And violet.
That's purple.
Do the colours ever change?
If you made one yourself, you could paint it any way you like.
Yeah, you're right.
But from the sky, it'll always go in the same order.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
How do you remember them?
Ride on your green bike in Vanuatu.
Huh?
It's how I remember the letters.
R-O-Y-G-B-I-V.
Ride on your green bike in Vanuatu.
Or you can just say Roy G Biv.
Roy G Biv?
Roy G Biv?
Yeah.
But really, there are so many colours in between those two.
I love the bluey green colour.
Oh yeah, I like the orangey pink colour.
I don't really have a favourite though.
I like all the colours.
Yeah.
So, remember before you said you needed rain and sunlight to make a rainbow?
Yeah.
Well, that's definitely true.
But you know the extra special last ingredient?
Fruits and stuff?
Or paint?
It's you.
What?!
!
You are essential in making a rainbow.
What do you mean?
The rainbow you're seeing is just for you.
The colours are coming directly to your eyes.
No one else can see the exact rainbow you're seeing.
We're all looking at the same one right now.
Nige, you've got to explain it better.
Because we're all standing in slightly different spots.
The colours we're seeing are actually coming from totally different drops of water.
So, even though we're all seeing the same colours, at the same time, we're all looking at our very own rainbow.
It feels special.
Wow, so white sunlight splits up into all the colours in lots of raindrops at the same time.
And the colours shoot out of the drops and go into our eyes and that's what makes a rainbow?
Yep, you got it.
So why does it make that shape?
Like a bridge.
Half of a circle.
The rainbow light coming out of each little raindrop is actually a circle, like a little ring of rainbow shining back towards the sun.
And a little bit of each little rainbow circle, from each tiny raindrop adds together to make a big rainbow circle in the sky.
What circle rainbows?
Since we usually see rainbows from the ground, The Earth gets in the way, so we only see the arch a half circle shape.
Oh, because the circle is cut in half.
Yeah.
Wow.
Being able to see a rainbow also comes down to where you're standing.
The sun has to be behind you.
Why?
Because we're seeing the light bouncing off the back of each raindrop and going towards the sun.
So when we're standing in the middle with the sun behind us and the water drops in front of us, we can see it.
Can we touch it?
No, because rainbows are up in the sky.
If you get too close to a rainbow, it will disappear.
This one here looks like it's just above the trees.
But if we run forward... Ready, set, go!
It's getting further away.
A rainbow is made up of light, so we can't ever catch it.
But what about the treasure?
I was going to get some gold.
That's just a make-believe story that some people tell other people.
There may not be gold at the end of them, but I reckon rainbows are still pretty magical.
It's also about loving how they are.
And these are just the rainbows humans can see.
Wait, what?
Humans can only see these colours in a rainbow.
But other animals, like snakes, can see in the infrared.
So they'd see colours after red.
And butterflies and spiders and other bugs can see ultraviolet light.
Violet, we can see that.
That's the last colour in the rainbow.
But ultraviolet is the colour they can see after that.
It's totally invisible to us.
We can only imagine what they look like.
I wonder what they'd call those colours.
Fly fly?
Peckly wart.
Great name.
Spring.
Crinkle-o.
Crinkle-o?
Yeah, I reckon that'd be a mix between yellow and purple.
Love it.
All right, Nidge.
It's been great.
But over to you for this bit.
Thanks, Ash.
So Lily and Apollo and Abby and Zoe and Rose and Mossy and Sadie.
Rainbows are made when light from the sun.
White light.
Hits a drop of water and bends.
It's called refraction.
Some light bends a little and some bends a lot, so the white light gets split into different colors.
It opens up like a fan.
The colors bounce off the back of each raindrop and head back towards the sun in a circle of rainbow light.
But the ground is in the way, so we just leave the arch.
We can see rainbows when we stand with the sun behind us and the raindrops in front of us.
Right in the middle.
Because the colours from lots of raindrops are beaming down into our eyes.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
You can see rainbows in lots of places.
In the rain, at the beach, the sprinkler.
But each and every one is made just for you.
You're the special ingredient.
No one else can see your rainbow.
You may not be able to get to the end of a rainbow.
Because it's made of light.
But the rainbow keeps going.
Redder than red.
And ultraviolet.
Into colours we can only imagine.
Imagine This is an ABC Kids Listen podcast, hosted by me, Dr Neeraj Lal.
A big thanks to our special guest host, Ash Cunningham, and to all the kids who helped make the show.
Today's episode was written and produced by Samia Bella, with sound design by Wei Nguyen, and was made on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung Turbul Palawa, Bundjalung and Gadigal lands.
Our executive producer is Emma Gibbs.
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