You can sometimes see a mirage because _____.
white light reflects off smooth surfaces
light rays can be bent by hot air
light rays can be bent by puddles
asphalt roads can reflect images
due to the refraction of light passing through layers of air with different temperatures
You can sometimes see a mirage because light rays can be bent by hot air. When there are variations in air temperature that cause differences in air density, it creates a phenomenon known as refraction. This refraction causes light rays to bend and change direction. When the air near the ground is hotter than the air higher up, the light rays passing through these temperature differences can be bent in a way that creates the illusion of a mirage. This is why mirages are commonly seen in deserts or over hot pavement, where the intense heat causes the air near the ground to become hotter and create the necessary temperature gradient for refraction to occur.
You can sometimes see a mirage because light rays can be bent by hot air. When light passes through air of different temperatures, such as over a hot road or desert, it travels at different speeds. This difference in speed causes the light rays to bend or refract, leading to the phenomenon of a mirage.
To understand why mirages occur, you can consider the principle of refraction. Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another, like from air to water or air to hotter air. When light rays travel from a cooler region to a hotter region of air, they speed up and bend away from the cooler air. This bending can create an illusion of a reflection or an extended object, which we perceive as a mirage.
In the case of a mirage over hot pavement or sandy desert surfaces, the heated air near the ground creates layers of varying temperatures. As light passes through these different temperature layers, it bends and gets redirected multiple times before reaching our eyes. This bending of light can make distant objects appear distorted, displaced, or even appear as pools of water.
So, while it may seem like a mirage is caused by reflections off smooth surfaces like water or asphalt, it actually occurs due to the bending of light rays caused by temperature differences in the air.