This is because light always follows the quickest path, not the shortest path. When traveling through a medium like the atmosphere, the difference in air density at different altitudes allows light to bend. In the vacuum of space, it does indeed travel in a straight line. It is widely assumed that light travels in a straight path, especially at a speed of 299 792 kilometers per second (186 282 miles per second). It can be seen on a hot day while traveling on a long stretch of road or in the desert, where the phenomenon first gained wide recognition.Ī mirage is capable of producing a misplaced image of an object due to the capability of light to refract (bend) in a medium with non-uniform uniform attributes. The most familiar and commonly occurring form of this optical distortion is the inferior mirage. Mirages can be divided into two types of optical distortions:īy looking at them individually, it will soon become clear how each phenomenon is formed and why we see (or perceive) the resulting image in the way we do. The word mirage was directly borrowed from the french verb, mirer, which originated from the Latin word, mirari, which translates to "mirror" or "to look at." As you will shortly learn, this is quite an accurate description of the phenomenon. It is a simplified and concise summary of an event that needs a more detailed explanation to understand how it occurs and what mechanisms are at play during the process.
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