How rainbows appear

Rainbows are spectacular rays of color. Sunlight looks white, but it's really made up of different colors...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The sun makes rainbows when white sunlight passes through rain drops. The raindrops act like tiny prisms. They bend the different colors in white light, so the light spreads out into a band of colors that can be reflected back to you as a rainbow.