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7th of March 2024
A double rainbow behind Murriyang, CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope, showing the sky is brighter inside the rainbow.
The bright side of the rainbow
This double rainbow behind Murriyang, CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope, was captured by Maxim Voronkov on a visit several years ago. The image also nicely illustrates how the sky inside a primary rainbow is brighter than the sky outside of the bow. This arises as raindrops are spheres and scatter light over a full circular disc in the sky. Over most of the disc, scattered light at all wavelengths overlaps, resulting in white light which makes the sky brighter. At the edge of the disc, the wavelength dependence of the scattering gives rise to the rainbow, with red light being scattered over a larger angle than blue light and so red appearing on the outside of the bow. (Image credit: Maxim Voronkov)



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