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    What Is Mirage

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    Stephanie Sabellano
    This document discusses several optical phenomena including mirages, light absorption, why clouds and sunsets appear different colors, and how rainbows are formed. It explains that mirages are caused by the refraction of light through a non-uniform air medium, usually heated by the sun. It describes how light absorption works at the atomic level. It also discusses why clouds are usually white but rainclouds darken, why the sky is blue, and why sunsets appear reddish due to scattering of different light wavelengths in the atmosphere.

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    What Is Mirage

    Uploaded by

    Stephanie Sabellano
    82 views7 pages
    This document discusses several optical phenomena including mirages, light absorption, why clouds and sunsets appear different colors, and how rainbows are formed. It explains that mirages are caused by the refraction of light through a non-uniform air medium, usually heated by the sun. It describes how light absorption works at the atomic level. It also discusses why clouds are usually white but rainclouds darken, why the sky is blue, and why sunsets appear reddish due to scattering of different light wavelengths in the atmosphere.

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    What is Mirage

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    This document discusses several optical phenomena including mirages, light absorption, why clouds and sunsets appear different colors, and how rainbows are formed. It explains that mirages are caused by the refraction of light through a non-uniform air medium, usually heated by the sun. It describes how light absorption works at the atomic level. It also discusses why clouds are usually white but rainclouds darken, why the sky is blue, and why sunsets appear reddish due to scattering of different light wavelengths in the atmosphere.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    82 views7 pages

    What Is Mirage

    Uploaded by

    Stephanie Sabellano
    This document discusses several optical phenomena including mirages, light absorption, why clouds and sunsets appear different colors, and how rainbows are formed. It explains that mirages are caused by the refraction of light through a non-uniform air medium, usually heated by the sun. It describes how light absorption works at the atomic level. It also discusses why clouds are usually white but rainclouds darken, why the sky is blue, and why sunsets appear reddish due to scattering of different light wavelengths in the atmosphere.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 7

    What is Mirage?

    What is absorption (referring to light absorption)?

    Why clouds are usually white and rainclouds dark?

    Why the sky is blue and sunsets are reddish?

    Why clothing of certain colors appear different in artificial light


    and in sunlight?

    How haloes, sundogs and rainbows formed?


    What is Mirage?
    A mirage is an optical phenomenon that creates the illusion of
    water and results from the refraction of light through a non-uniform
    medium which usually occurs in sunny days.

    Hot air tends to be less optically dense than cooler air. As such, a
    non-uniform medium has been created by the heating of the roadway
    and the air just above it.
    What is absorption (referring to light absorption)?
    Atoms and molecules contain electrons and these electrons of
    atoms have a natural frequency at which they tend to vibrate.
    If a wave of a given frequency strikes a material with electrons
    having the same vibrational frequencies, then those electrons will
    absorb the energy of the light wave and transform it into vibrational
    motion.
    Why clouds are usually white and rainclouds dark?
    Sunlight
    When clouds become thick and heavy, very little light shines
    through them and they appear darker to our eyes. Once clouds reach
    about 3,000 feet in thickness, almost no light penetrates. The cloud
    appears dark, and ground conditions resemble dusk or evening.
    Water Droplets
    Tiny water droplets or ice crystals produce clouds. The droplets
    and crystals reflect sunlight, scattering all colors in the sunlight’s
    spectrum. This differs from the relatively smaller size of air molecules,
    which tend to scatter light in the blue color range more effectively,
    which is why the sky appears blue.
    Shadows
    The shadow of one cloud upon another also makes clouds look
    dark. As clouds gather in a stormy sky, shadows often occur because
    clouds are at different distances from the observer. The angle of either
    a rising or setting sun causes sunlight to shine only on the top layers of
    clouds. The lower portions do not gather as much light appear gray to
    black. Because storms often occur in the morning and evening, the
    sun’s angle contributes to darkening skies.
    Heavy Clouds
    Approaching cold fronts often fire up thunderstorms as the cold
    air mass behind the front lifts warm air ahead of it. Cumulonimbus
    clouds is an example of the kind of storm cloud that appears to darken
    as the storm nears, and has dark or gray patterns as viewed from a
    distance.
    Why the sky is blue and sunsets are reddish?
    The interaction of sunlight with matter can result in one of the
    three wave behaviours: absorption, transmission and reflection. The
    atmosphere is gaseous sea that contains a variety of types of particles;
    the two most common types of matter present in the atmosphere are
    gaseous nitrogen and oxygen. The amount of multidirectional
    scattering that occurs is dependent upon the frequency of the light.
    Atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen scatter violet light most easily,
    followed by blue light, green light, etc. So as white light (ROYGBIV) from
    the sun passes through our atmosphere, the higher frequency (BIV)
    become scattered by atmospheric particles while the lower frequencies
    (ROY) are most likely to pass through the atmosphere without a
    significant alteration in their direction.
    Sunset
    The appearance of the sun changes with the time of day. While it
    may be yellow during midday, it is often found to gradually turn color
    as it approaches sunset. This can be explained by light scattering.

    During sunset hours, the light passing through our atmosphere


    to our eyes tends to be most concentrated with red and orange
    frequencies of light. For this reason, the sunsets have a reddish-orange
    hue. The effect of a red sunset becomes more pronounced if the
    atmosphere contains more and more particles.

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