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- "The sun is shining above the…
"The sun is shining above the beautiful rainbow."
Translation:La suno brilas super la bela ĉielarko.
9 Comments
106
Practically speaking, you're correct. But science!
The position of a rainbow relative to the viewer is due to the number of reflections the light makes as it goes through the raindrops; the more reflections, the higher the order. A 1st order rainbow, the classic one, forms at 42° opposite the sun. A 2nd order rainbow (It’s a double rainbow all the way. Whoa, that’s so intense! Whoa! Man! Wow!) forms just outside the 1st order rainbow at 50–53°.
However, 3rd and 4th order rainbows appear in the direction of the sun, about 40° and 45°, respectively. Since each additional reflection decreases the brightness, they are much dimmer than the classical 1st order rainbow, plus they have to fight against the glare of the sun. So, they are rarely sighted...but both have been photographed.
Then, just to get even weirder, there is the moonbow. That's a rainbow formed by light reflected off the moon. So you can end up with a moonbow in the same direction as the sun. (Although, the light is usually so dim that you can't see the colors with the naked eye; but the colors can show up in a photograph.)
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/ord34.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/moonbow.htm
Because while "super" is a preposition of location, the verb "brilas" does not allow motion toward or into that location.
See my blog post for more detail.
https://blogs.transparent.com/esperanto/keys-to-understanding-esperanto-prepositions/