Amazing Photo: Double Rainbow Over Wyoming

A double rainbow photographed on Sep. 1., 2012. — Wyoming resident Jonmikel Pardo took this spectacular photograph of a double rainbow on Sep. 1. from his backyard in Lander, Wyo. (Image credit: Jonmikel Pardo)

Wyoming resident Jonmikel Pardo took this spectacular photograph of a double rainbow on Sep. 1. from his backyard in Lander, Wyo.

"It was just after a fast-moving thunderstorm passed through," he told OurAmazingPlanet. "There was a break in the clouds just as the sun was about to set behind the mountains. The break was large enough to allow the full sunlight through and the rainbow was incredibly bright, even more so with the dark storm surrounding us."

Pardo takes photographs mostly as a hobby, but has had his work included in several regional publications and Boys Life magazine.

To see a rainbow, you need two ingredients: sunlight and raindrops. When sunlight passes through a prism — in this case, drops of water — some of the light is refracted, or bent, more than other portions, based on the wavelength (or color) of the different parts of the light spectrum. Light leaving the prism then spreads out into a continuous band of colors called a spectrum.

As in this case, sometimes a secondary bow forms outside the primary, giving the look of a double rainbow. It's always fainter and usually disappears more quickly than the primary.

Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Douglas Main loves the weird and wonderful world of science, digging into amazing Planet Earth discoveries and wacky animal findings (from marsupials mating themselves to death to zombie worms to tear-drinking butterflies) for Live Science. Follow Doug on Google+.