Chuck Laham, age 12, of Wichita, Kansas, for his question:

Why do rainbows come after showers?

Rainbows are made by sunbeams and falling raindrops, and both must be in their proper places in the sky. A shower is needed to provide the falling raindrops, and its cloud must be rather low in the sky. The sun must be shining on the opposite side of the sky. Its beams slant across and strike the raindrops as they fall down from the weeping cloud.

When everything is just right, the raindrops act like glassy little mirrors and prisms. Their shiny surfaces bend the rays of sunlight, separate its hidden colors and spread them over the sky. Each color band separates at a certain angle and takes its proper place in the rainbow. None of this could happen without a shower to provide the glassy raindrops and the Sun to provide the sunbeams. And the magic occurs in the morning or evening when the Sun is low, facing a shower on the opposite side of the sky.