ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Rainbow covering

A rainbow is a beautiful arch of colors that appears in the sky when the sun shines after rainfall.

Now imagine a blanket covering a window where the sunlight comes through. The blanket won't let all colors through, and only some will shine in. The colors that get through will be the colors of the rainbow because the sunlight is made up of many colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet).

The light moves through the air with little bits of water droplets, like tiny raindrops, and each color bends in a different way when it hits a droplet. This makes each color spread out and form a rainbow shape in the sky.

So, when you see a rainbow, it’s like a colorful curtain that the sunshine creates with raindrops!