Fata Morgana Mirage - Miragem Especial

Fata Morgana mirages form when there is a band of air over the sea ice with strong temperature gradients. Light travels through air of different temperatures at different rates, and when there is a strong temperature gradient, the light bends as it goes from an object to our eyes (or camera). We record the light as having traveled in a straight line, and so we see things in places where they don't actually exist. This is true of all mirages - they are images that are contorted by light bending or reflecting off surfaces. Fata Morgana mirages are special, in that they consist of many different images stretched and distorted along the horizon. (See this wikipedia page for more information.) 

One of these mirages greeted me at McMurdo Station. Mt. Discovery and the Royal Society Mountains looked like they had cliffs at the shoreline. They don't. It's just a mirage.

Mt. Discovery is on the left, and the lower image shows an expanded view of the base of the mountain. The horizontal lines are duplicated images of the sea ice and the columns below them are shoreline features stretched vertically. Brown Peninsula is to the right of Mt. Discovery, and a small black vertical line marks the extent of the mirage. It's gone now - these effects are only when the air temperature varies significantly right over the sea ice.

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