In past centuries , sailors were sometimes surprised to see upside - down ships sailing in the sky , or elaborate castles built on the ocean . When they turned towards them , these phantasm disappear . The semblance , called The Fata Morgana , can still be seen today if the witches are in a mood the weather ’s right .
crewman going along the Strait of Messina were often bedaze , and scared , to see sprawl islands with towering castles come out on the horizon . Sometimes the islands deploy boats that sailed upside down in the air above the sea . The boats may have become the basis for the legend of the Flying Dutchman , but the islands , with their odd castles , came to be know as Fata Morgana . They were named for Morgana Le Fey the villainous witch of Arthurian legend . She put up illusions to entice men to their last .
Fata Morgana are mirages of a particular type . When red-hot air hangs in a swarm , above melodic phrase chilled by the ocean , luminance from objects on the sea can be bent back down towards the Earth . the great unwashed watching from the shoring , or from boats , see objects that seem to be floating in the sky . To interpret how the illusion works , imagine tracing the way of life of the wave of light in a car , the good side of the car facing the sky , and the left side facing the terra firma . To begin with , you are fish up , about to drive off into the sky like a jet taking off from a track . Once you pass on a sure height , though , your right wheels turn faster than your left wheels . The increased upper of the correct bike , and drag of the left wheels , slowly rick the motorcar back down , until you ’re lead back towards the ground .
This is what happens to the light . Light motion faster in hotter , less - dense strain . As light waves bounce off a sauceboat and head up up towards the sky , they start out in air cooled by the sea . As they move further upwards , they encounter raging air . This aura turns the undulation slightly , a fleck at a time . With enough time in a temperature slope , hotter airwave above and cool air below , the light wave will slue back down to the undercoat . To someone on the ground , who ca n’t see the integral track of the light , it looks like the light , and the boat or island it bounced off of , is floating in mid - gentle wind .
ikon : Brocken Inaglory
Where the light begin out affect where it ends up . Light from just above the Earth’s surface of the sea can make a more dramatic curve than light that ’s debar far above the sea , at the top of the mast of a ship . Get the angle right , and mental image can come out to be invert – so intact islands and boats can look like they ’re float upside down . With the right compounding of heat energy and light , we can see straggle cities in the sky , doubled boats , and sometimes multiple Sun .
[ ViaNASA APOD . ]
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