My Wierd rainbow Experince

[futuretech1281]

This happen a couple months back when it was raining here in seattle.

 

I was driving home from the store and I notice this huge rainbow in the distance behind me from the mirror of my car.

But then I also notice that the rainbow from far distance starts from right behind my car and ends at the far distance.

 

I thought of this when I got home and I find it wierd that even though the rainbow that is faraway is able to connect to the

rainbow that was created by the splash of my rear tires.

 

How can those 2 rainbow be connected as 1 when they are so far apart from eachother?

[pwagen]

They're not far apart as they don't exist. They're an image in your eyes due to the way the light is reflected in the water drops. Distance of the water has no impact on where the rainbows appear to be. Only thing that matters is the angles of which the light is reflected.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow

[krash661]

also,

when a ray of sunlight enters a drop of water, a part of it does not pass directly through but is reflected from the inner surface and emerges from the side from which it entered.
it is refracted both on entering and leaving the water drop.
the process of this repeated constantly and/or simultaneously in or of a a lot of water,is the rainbow, or what you see.
it usually has the red band on the outer edge which are long light waves and the blue-to-violet on the inner edge which are short light waves.

the second one is the same process, but with suns light reflected twice,
before emerging from the raindrop
usually when this occurs,
the color sequence is reversed,
red is on the inside edge and because there is a loss of light with each reflection,
it is not as bright as the primary rainbow.
the area between the two bows is relatively dark,
for it lacks entirely both the once and the twice reflected rays.