What is Moonbow? How is it different from Rainbow?

What is Moonbow? How is it different from Rainbow?

A Moonbow (sometimes known as a lunar rainbow) is an optical phenomenon caused when the light from the moon is refracted through water droplets in the air. Moonbows were first mentioned by Aristotle back in 350BC, and there are certain parts of the world where you are more likely to see them, such as Hawaii.

The amount of light available even from the brightest full moon is far less than that produced by the sun so moonbows are incredibly faint and very rarely seen. The fact that not enough light is produced to excite the cone colour receptors in the human eye also compounds the difficulty we have in seeing Moonbows.

As nouns the difference between rainbow and Moonbow is that rainbow is a multicoloured arch in the sky, produced by prismatic refraction of light within droplets of rain in the air while Moonbow is (meteorology) a rainbow formed by moonlight diffracted by water droplets in the air, usually fainter than a daytime rainbow and with fewer distinguishable colours.