How do mirages form? Science answers!

You’ve probably seen a movie or animation that demonstrates this. How can people lost in the desert witness a somewhat strange phenomenon: mirages. In many of these audiovisual productions, the protagonist begins to visualize a water-filled oasis after walking for miles through an inhospitable desert.

Most people believe that mirages are a type of illusion produced by the human brain. But the truth is that this phenomenon is entirely due to nature. In fact, this is a visual illusion perceived by the observer, but its cause has no connection with hallucinations or schizophrenic crises.

“A mirage is, in optics, the illusory appearance of a distant object or objects due to the bending (refraction) of light rays in layers of air of varying density. Under certain conditions, for example, over a patch of pavement or in heated desert air. In intense sunlight, the air cools rapidly as it rises, and hence density and refractive power increases,” is described by the encyclopedia Britannica.

The classic tale of the Flying Dutchman tells the tales of sailors who observe a ghost ship wandering the seas and unable to dock anywhere. The original ship in the story was last seen in the Bermuda Triangle in 1632, but was later cited by many people who reported seeing the ship. There is no way to confirm this, but researchers suggest that reports of the Flying Dutchman may have appeared after the mirages.

But ultimately, what is a mirage and how does it occur? We gathered information from scientists and other experts in the field to understand the topic a little better.

How do mirages form?

As mentioned before, mirages are produced by nature itself and tend to occur in some specific environments. In an interview with the website Live ScienceSan Diego State University (USA) astronomer Anthony Young categorically said that the mirage is not an optical illusion.

Mirage is a real phenomenon but is often misinterpreted by observers. It’s no wonder many find the image confusing and misidentify it. The effect responsible for producing images during a mirage is refraction, which occurs when light waves travel through different materials in the air with different intensities.

It works like this: Normally, light travels in a straight line through a material, but in some different materials it bends towards the denser, cooler air. This effect can create two types of mirages.

upper mirage

The superior mirage tends to occur more in spring and summer, when there is a thermal inversion and the sea is cooler than the warm air of the season. — in this case, the air closest to the water is colder than the air above it. This effect occurs because changes in temperature and density cause light reflected from an object to bend in air, resulting in a mirage, according to Xin Tong, a doctoral student in optical imaging at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). .

In the upper mirage, Because the refraction passes through the upper layers along with the warm air, the image appears above its actual position. In the illusion, the object appears to be reflected upwards; this could be a ship, an iceberg, an island, among other objects.

“Superior mirages result from temperature reversal when a layer of colder air rests on top of a layer of warmer air, causing the rays to bend downwards, thus revealing an image over the real object,” explains a study on mirages published in the institute scientific journal. Department of Physics.

When observing this phenomenon, human vision interprets it as if the image is floating due to the bending of light. Some scientists even claim that reports of the Flying Dutchman may be the result of superior mirages, also called ‘Fata Morgana’.

low mirage

Low mirage usually occurs in environments with high temperatures. as in deserts or on a sunny road; The image is produced because the air near the surface is warmer than the air above it. For example, in the case of mirages in deserts, the image of the sky may appear to be on the surface of the desert; for this reason they are often confused with puddle.

“Low-level mirages occur on hot surfaces such as roads. They occur when light rays bend upward, causing an inverted image, creating the illusion of water since the bottom of the inverted image is usually the sky,” the article explains.

The effect occurs because The light coming from the colder part of the air is refracted upwards as it passes to the warmer surface, Therefore, our eyes interpret that image as if it were at the bottom of the environment.

Did you like the content? Stay up to date with more mirage-related curiosities at TecMundo. Understand, if you wish, why one scientist suggested that the expansion of the universe is a ‘mirage’.