Sue Zervas, age 14, of Duluth, Il., for her question:

Why are all rainbows the same colors?

This is because rainbows are made from sunbeams and all sunbeams are alike. Experts tell us that every sunbeam is made of white light. As it travels to earth from the sun, it is invisible. However, a beam of white light is a lot more than it seems to be. Actually it is a bundle of pulsing energies called waves. Every beam of white lights has the same assortment of waves in longer and shorter lengths. When it falls upon the surface of certain objects, these different waves are separated and bent to go off in different directions. When this happens, we see them as different colors.

Sometimes the sun shines on a showering cloud on the far side of the sky. Then millions of falling raindrops play tricks on the sunbeams. The waves of white light are bent and scattered off in different directions. The separate rays show different colors. But the rainbow colors are al¬ways the same, because they come from the same assortment of pulsing wavae in every beam of white light.