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Subject:
Mirage of Corsica as Seen from Nice
Category: Science > Physics Asked by: jbhipps-ga List Price: $3.00 |
Posted:
06 Nov 2004 07:11 PST
Expires: 06 Dec 2004 07:11 PST Question ID: 425280 |
When I was in Nice, France, my host described to me a phenomenon whereby during certain times of the year, Corsica would appear to loom above the horizon and could be seen from the coast of Nice clearly, its people, terrain, etc. magnified so that they could be seen clearly with the naked eye. I need to know the name of this phenomenon and ideally some background and definition of it. The closest I've been able to come is a reference to a study Maraldi did of the phenomenon - but I can't find a name or a summary. |
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There is no answer at this time. |
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Subject:
Re: Mirage of Corsica as Seen from Nice
From: fp-ga on 06 Nov 2004 07:56 PST |
Some pictures: http://www.alpix.com/nice/htmlfr/pictcors.htm http://www.06nice.com/somsud/gcors/gcorse2.htm |
Subject:
Re: Mirage of Corsica as Seen from Nice
From: omnivorous-ga on 06 Nov 2004 07:56 PST |
JBHipps -- Corsica is about 100 miles from Nice. The only phenomena I'm aware of that would make it visible would be light refraction. There's a particular phenomena called "looming" that might explain it. Though it's incidental to this Google Answer on how far one can see, check the reference at the end: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=420365 Best regards, Omnivorous-GA |
Subject:
Re: Mirage of Corsica as Seen from Nice
From: racecar-ga on 07 Nov 2004 17:44 PST |
There is no way that people could be seen with the naked eye at a distance of 100 miles. However, it is possible for light to curve so that things that would normally be below the horizon are visible. This happens because the air is denser closer to the surface of the earth, so light travels slower there. If there is an increase in temperature with height, instead of the usual decrease, this density gradient will be greater than usual, cause more curvature than usual, and making things visible that normally wouldn't be. |
Subject:
Re: Mirage of Corsica as Seen from Nice
From: karies-ga on 14 Nov 2004 00:51 PST |
Those two things, looming and seeing person's noses, are at least from the physics side unrelated. Looming: just as racecar-ga said, you need cold air on the sea, and warm air ontop (print at http://www.suite101.com/print_article.cfm/13646/92077). The light coming over from Corse is bent, but as we all have learned that light travels straight (a pretty good assumption) Corse seems to float above the horizon. There's another part that plays a role: if the sea's color at the horizon doesn't allow you to exactly tell where the sea "ends" (see this picture on fp-ga's site: http://www.06nice.com/somsud/gcors/vgcors/bcouv.jpg), the mountains seem to be disconnected from the sea. This can happen e.g. due to high humidity on the sea level, showing up as fog in thze distance. But as it's only at sea level, the mountains stick out above. This is what happened on the above picture. Okay, that was part one. The closeness: we cannot estimate large distances properly. But we have some hints which we use unconsciously. One of them is the clarity of the object: if it's fuzzy, then there is a lot of air in between, so we know it's far away. Sometimes this doesn't work, though: if the air is exceptionally dry things don't flicker around - they're as clear as a car 10 meters (30ft :-) away. This gives the impression you can grab it, and you can actually see a _lot_ better thanks to the clear view (ask astronomers about the correlation between dry air and their mood when using e.g. optical telescopes). Btw, this often happens near mountains; it's called "Föhn" in the german speaking part of the Alpes - but I can't give you the french word. It really is amazing, though, seeing a huge mountain sitting right in your backyard. |
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