Taiwanese professors capture nine-hour rainbow

Rainbows are a lovely, rare sight. But even rarer are those that last for several hours – let alone nine hours.

Professors from the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Chinese Culture University (CCU) in Taipei, Taiwan have launched a campaign to have a marathon nine-hour rainbow they spotted to be recognised by the Guiness World Records as the longest-lasting rainbow ever recorded.

A professor from CCU named Chou Kun-hsuan told Focus Taiwan that the department is trying to collate at least 36,000 photos from the public to document the rainbow’s existence – which spanned from 6.57am until 3.55pm on Nov 30.

The photos will reportedly be used to create a so-called “rainbow clock” as evidence for the Guiness World Records committee.

Is this the world's longest-lasting rainbow? It was reportedly on display for nine hours https://t.co/xbylGVUK2X pic.twitter.com/5kcRYOjXhJ

— CNN International (@cnni) December 6, 2017

“It was amazing… It felt like a gift from the sky… It’s so rare!” said Chou Kun-hsuan, who documented the phenomenon along with the help of CCU students, told the BBC.

To date, the longest-lasting recorded rainbow was in Yorkshire, England in 1994 which lasted six hours.

“We need to be fully prepared and provide ironclad evidence in case of any doubt about the authenticity of the rainbow,” added Chou, who said he hoped to make Taipei known as a “rainbow city”.

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