Rainbow Trivia
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59 free Rainbow trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
53 free rainbow trivia questions with answers, mixing the physics of the bow with the stories people have told about it. The science half covers why a rainbow always sits opposite the Sun at about 42 degrees, why the secondary bow reverses its colours, what Alexander's band is, how moonbows and fogbows differ from the real thing, why Newton insisted on seven colours, and what a rainbow would look like on Saturn's moon Titan. The culture half ranges from Iris and Bifrost to the Rainbow Serpent, Noah's covenant and the leprechaun's pot of gold, then on to Gilbert Baker's 1978 pride flag, the Rainbow Warrior bombing, Rainbow Row in Charleston, Ritchie Blackmore's band, Reading Rainbow, Rainbow Road, Skittles and the song Judy Garland nearly lost from The Wizard of Oz. Every answer is checked against a cited encyclopaedia page. Difficulty runs from easy classroom facts to questions that will stump a pub quiz team, so it works for a school science unit, a Pride event or a family game night.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A rainbow caused by sunlight always appears in which part of the sky?
Directly opposite the Sun
Directly opposite the Sun: the arc is centred on the point where the shadow of your own head falls, so you only ever see one with the Sun at your back.
Q 02In a primary rainbow, which colour is on the outer edge of the arc?
Red
Red light leaves the raindrop at the widest angle, so it forms the outside of the bow.
Q 03From flat ground, no rainbow can appear when the Sun is where?
High overhead
High overhead: once the Sun climbs more than about 42° above the horizon the whole arc drops out of sight, which is why early morning and late afternoon are the best times to spot a rainbow.
Q 04Which three things happen to sunlight inside a raindrop to make a rainbow?
Refraction, internal reflection and dispersion
Refraction, internal reflection and dispersion: light bends as it enters the drop, bounces off the back and bends again on leaving, and because each colour bends by a different amount the white light fans out.
Q 05What happens to a rainbow when someone walks towards it?
It moves away
It moves away: the bow is made by whichever drops sit at the right angle from the viewer's eye, so it shifts with every step, and no two people see quite the same one.
Q 06From where can a rainbow sometimes be seen as a complete circle?
An aeroplane
An aeroplane: every rainbow is really a full circle, and the ground simply hides the lower half from anyone standing on it.
Q 07How does a double rainbow's outer bow differ from the inner one?
Its colours are reversed
Its colours are reversed: the outer bow is an inside-out copy of the main one, brightening the sky beyond it instead of within, which leaves a darker strip between the two.
Q 08What is the name for the strip of darker sky between a primary and a secondary rainbow?
Alexander's band
Alexander's band is dark because raindrops there send their light either inside the main bow or outside the second one, never toward your eye. Alexander of Aphrodisias described it around AD 200.
Q 09Why is a double rainbow's outer bow always fainter?
Its light bounces twice inside each drop
Its light bounces twice inside each drop, leaking a little more each time, and what survives is spread across a wider arc of sky than the main bow's.
Q 10Which colour did Isaac Newton add to his list of rainbow colours to bring the total to seven?
Indigo
Indigo sits so close to blue that scientists have doubted the eye can tell the two apart, and Isaac Asimov argued it was merely a deep blue, not a colour in its own right.
Q 11Newton settled on seven rainbow colours by analogy with what?
The notes of a musical scale
The notes of a musical scale: Newton suspected colours were proportioned like musical tones, and the unequal slices of his colour circle follow the intervals of a scale.
Q 12Which name do American schoolchildren use to remember the order of a rainbow's colours?
Roy G. Biv
Roy G. Biv: British pupils learn the same initials as 'Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain', a line said to recall a Yorkist defeat in the Wars of the Roses.
Q 13What name is given to a rainbow that appears at night?
A moonbow
Q 21Which Muppet sings 'Rainbow Connection' at the start of The Muppet Movie?
Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog strums it on a banjo in his swamp; the song became a real Top 40 hit and an Oscar nominee, though it lost to 'It Goes Like It Goes' from Norma Rae.
Q 22Which Frenchman explained the rainbow in 1637 after experiments with a large water-filled glass sphere?
René Descartes
René Descartes tucked it into an essay published with his Discourse on Method, using the sphere as one giant raindrop because he had noticed that drop size made no difference to the bow.
Q 23In Greek mythology, which goddess personifies the rainbow and serves as messenger to the Olympians?
Iris
A moonbow usually looks white to the naked eye, because its light is too faint to trigger our colour vision, yet long-exposure photographs bring the colours out.
Q 14Which waterfall is famous for night-time rainbows in its spray?
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls throws up so much spray that on clear nights around full moon the mist catches enough light to form a pale arc.
Q 15Why does a fog bow look almost white?
Its water droplets are too small
Its water droplets are too small: far finer than raindrops, they smear the light by diffraction, so the colours overlap and blur into a broad, ghostly white arc.
Q 16Sun dogs, the bright spots that flank the Sun, are caused by light passing through what?
Hexagonal ice crystals
Hexagonal ice crystals drifting with their flat faces level act as tiny prisms, bending sunlight by at least 22 degrees, which is why the spots sit that far either side of the Sun.
Q 17Why would a rainbow on Titan be larger than one on Earth?
Its rain is liquid methane, not water
Its rain is liquid methane, not water: methane bends light less, so a bow on Saturn's largest moon would be several degrees wider, and in Titan's haze it might show up best in infrared.
Q 18What hid third-order rainbows from cameras until 2011?
The Sun's glare
The Sun's glare: the third bow rings the Sun itself, and it is far fainter and broader than the first two, which is why sightings had been so rare.
Q 19Which classical Greek scholar was the first to devote serious attention to explaining the rainbow?
Aristotle
His qualitative account was flawed but went unmatched for centuries; much later rainbow theory was a reaction to it.
Q 20Which medieval English friar measured the greatest height a rainbow can reach in the sky?
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon made the rainbow his showcase for 'experimental science' in the Opus Majus, fixing its greatest height with a measurement probably taken by astrolabe.
Iris is also the Greek word for rainbow, and it went on to name the coloured part of the eye, the iris flower and 'iridescent', which literally means rainbow-coloured.
Q 24In Norse mythology, the burning rainbow bridge Bifrost connects Midgard to which realm?
Asgard
Asgard, home of the gods: the red in the bridge is said to be burning fire, there to stop the frost giants from simply walking up into heaven.
Q 25Which Norse god lives at Himinbjörg and guards Bifrost from the giants?
Heimdall
Heimdall needs less sleep than a bird and can hear grass growing, and at the onset of Ragnarök, when the bridge is fated to break, he sounds his horn to warn the gods.
Q 26The Rainbow Serpent, a creator deity linked to water, comes from the mythology of which people?
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians: in many of their traditions the serpent lives in deep, permanent waterholes, and a rainbow in the sky is the serpent travelling from one waterhole to the next.
Q 27In the Book of Genesis, the rainbow is set as a token of God's promise after which event?
The great flood
The great flood: in Genesis the bow is a reminder for God himself, who tells Noah, 'I will look upon it, that I may remember' never again to let the waters destroy all life.
Q 28Which rock group let fans pay whatever they liked, even nothing, to download its 2007 album In Rainbows?
Radiohead
Radiohead's contract with EMI had ended, so the group sold In Rainbows straight from its own website, a landmark move for a major act that made headlines around the world.
Q 29Which two-headed creature represents the rainbow in Chinese mythology?
A dragon called Hong
A dragon called Hong: the oldest Chinese character for 'rainbow', carved on Shang oracle bones, shows an arched dragon or serpent with a head at each end.
Q 30In Irish folklore, which creature is said to keep a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
The leprechaun
The leprechaun of older folklore is a solitary fairy shoemaker who, W. B. Yeats wrote, grew rich on treasure buried in old wars, and he was generally dressed in red, not green.