Square Sun... The Sun is not always round!!

Sometimes, nature show us extraordinary things that our brain don't want to believe!
But our eyes tell us otherwise...

Isn't the Sun round? Yes, but in the above picture, the Earth's atmosphere makes it appear almost square. Here a layer of air near the Earth was so warm it acted like a giant lens, creating increasingly distorted paths for sunlight to reach the camera.
Similarly, on a long flat highway, it may appear that the road in the distance is covered with water. In this case, light from the blue sky is being unusually refracted by warm air just above the dry road. No matter how the Earth's atmosphere makes the Sun appear, the Sun will always be spherical.
This setting Sun was photographed over Lake Michigan in Muskegon, MI

Source

Other examples of this very rare mirage:



Source





Source

Very nice examples of how our atmosphere can distort celestial objects, if more people would understand this thered be 99% less ufo sightings. S&F.

Main top pic looks Photoshopped with paint

Stunningly beautiful pictures (assuming they have not been photoshopped lots) and a phenomenon that I had not come across before, very interesting.
I agree with the poster above, this could account for a lot of strangely shaped objects being seen.

removed post - for some reason it posted twice, sorry!

Very cool mirage. I clicked on this link getting ready to blow up a silly theory but was plesantly surprised. Thank you OP.

Huh, pretty cool. Something else interesting is that I heard is that the reason why the sun appears bigger in the horizon is something like this:

If you see a airplane above you at a certain height right above you, and then see that same airplane at the same height, but off in the horizon, the plane in the horizon will look smaller.

therefore, youre used to seeing things smaller in the horizon

hence, seeing the sun on the horizon, which is measurably (not including any optical illusions) the same size, no matter where in the sky it is, our brain gives us the illusion that its bigger. This is because to our brain, it should have the same effect as the airplane, but it doesn't. Dont know if this makes any sense.

Did a google search for "square sun" and found many interesting pictures of this phenomena. Thanks for sharing!!

irockcuzimcool.deviantart.com...

reply to post by elevenaugust


Im not sure if this is the same phenomenon but this is a pic i took ;

But the Sun and the Moon *are* square.



Erm...game, ya say?

Maybe I should get out more.

im so relieved to see this isnt some crazy theory about how the sun changes shape and is tricking us into thinking its round which is pretty much what i expected but isnt it amazing how nature creates such grand optical illusions

Here's the same mirage phenomena on the moon....



www.abovetopsecret.com...

Very cool

reply to post by elevenaugust



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