Ever heard of a moonbow? It’s for real!  

Imagine this: It’s a weekend and you were looking forward to playing outside and basking in the sunshine. However, when you wake up, you are greeted by dark clouds and raindrops. You instantly feel depressed, but within a matter of hours, your mood feels lighter. Why? Of course, because the rain has stopped but more because you get to witness the rare occurrence in the sky. It’s a rainbow! Well, we all know that rainbow occurs when the sunrays get refracted after a into a visible spectrum after a bout of shower. But what if we told you that rainbows can be formed by the moon too? Yes, you read that right. We are talking about moonbows here.  

Introducing moonbows 
Moonbow is a once-in-a blue moon occurrence, literally. It even has interesting names, such as the lunar rainbow. However, moonbow sounds a lot better. Wouldn’t you agree? 

Okay, so here’s how we define a moonbow. It’s a rainbow formed by moonlight diffracted by rain droplets in the air, which is usually fainter than a daytime rainbow and even has fewer distinguishable colours. Why? Because moonlight itself isn’t all that bright. After all, we all know that the moon borrows its light from the sun and even has different phases of its own. Therefore, the perfect condition to see a moonbow is usually when it rains during a full moon. Additionally, the sky needs to be really dark and the moon should be hanging low in the sky (meaning it should be somewhere below 42 degrees of the horizon). And oh, the rain droplets should be in the opposite direction to the Moon. Now you can understand why moonbows, although existent, are highly rare, right? 

Moonbow or a white rainbow? 
Moonbow is also nicknamed as a white rainbow. Why? Because it doesn’t look like a rainbow. It definitely has the shape of an arch, but instead of the different hues, it looks white to the naked human eye. This is because the dim light generated by the moon gives out colours that aren’t bright enough to be detected by the colour receptors in our eyes. Only, cameras with long exposure mechanisms can help distinguish between the shades of a moonbow. 

Spray moonbow 
For those who have seen a moonbow, they will tell you it’s not only a matter of luck but also a matter of where they were at that time. What do we mean by this? Moonbows occur more in certain specific locations like Yosemite National Park in California, Victoria Falls in Africa and Plitvice Lake in Croatia. Wondering what’s so special about these locations? Do they experience a lot of rain on full moon nights? No! Well, these locations have the common factor of waterfalls, that produce layers of mist in the air, which can even generate moonbows. In fact, these types of moonbows are called spray moonbows. So, what is interesting here is this that rain alone isn’t responsible for a moonbow, mist can do the job too.