The colorful rainbow moment 5 illuminating the sky over the state of New Jersey, USA at sunset, enters the photographer’s lens.
Photographer John Entwistle captured five rainbows in the sky while photographing a sunset in New Jersey, United States, according to Live Science. “I could be wrong, but it really looks like five rainbows at sunset over the Jersey Shore,” Entwistle wrote on Instagram on September 18.
This supernumerary rainbow consists of a main rainbow that is the brightest and most visible, along with at least two other less vibrant sub-rainbows. In the case of Visible Entwistle, 5 consecutive rainbows are clearly visible from afar.
“In general, consecutive rainbows are quite common. There are many photos that take two to three consecutive rainbows,” said Gunther Können, climatology researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. “But the presence of five consecutive rainbows in nature is special.”
“Continuous rainbows are really easy to appear, but it’s hard to see them because they aren’t bright and tend to be obscured by the dominant color of the main rainbow,” said Raymond Lee, research professor at the Institute. Annapolis, Maryland, shared.
Rainbows are typically formed when sunlight shines through a drop of water that is denser than the surrounding air, causing the light to bend or refract. In a drop of water, light is also reflected. Different wavelengths of light are bent in different degrees, occurring in many tiny water droplets, creating a rainbow.
Successive rainbows occur because light diffuses and annihilates when exposed to air. This type of rainbow is also easier to see because the water droplets are relatively even in shape. “Continental rainbows appear conical, which means that the distance between rainbows gradually decreases from the top towards the proximity of the horizon,” says Können.
