Mirages

Bending light in air

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Temperature gradients in air bend light.
• Road mirages are bent images of the sky.
• Atmospheric refraction lifts and squashes the setting Sun.

Steps

1. Water on the road
2. Ships in the sky
3. Extra daylight
4. Seeing the Sun after sunset
5. Rays that turn back up
6. The green flash