Why do sunbeams appear to spread out?
Question
Distance of sun from Earth.
I was out, walking my dog this morning, just as the sun came up. There was a thin cloud cover, but the sun's rays were coming through. I noticed that the light rays came in a fanned pattern. If I trace the rays back to a point of origination, I determine that the sun is maybe a mile up in the sky.
Either they've been lying to us all these years as to how far away the sun is, or something else is going on here.
Why are the light rays fanned out? Shouldn't they be more parallel if the sun is 93,000,000 miles away?
Thanks.
Ken Silva
Phoenix, AZ
USA
Answer
The correct name for this phenomenon is "crepuscular rays". It refers to the apparent spreading out from behind a cloud of sunbeams or shafts of sunlight when you view them from the Earth's surface.
It is, of course, an illusion. The Sun's rays are not issuing from behind a cloud and spreading out towards you: the Sun is so far away that the light rays reaching the Earth are effectively parallel. Instead, this "trick of the light" is caused by perspective. That is, things farther away look smaller. This is why train tracks appear to narrow, or converge, into the distance.
So when you look skywards and see sunbeams coming through a cloud, because the light patches at greater distance appear closer together, making the shafts of light look narrower.
Comments
Sun
The sun is small a local . The earth is not a globe ,
Flat?
Tommy, since you believe the earth is flat please show where ANY flat earth model has a scale. The globe model does.
Crepuscular rays
我正在想为什么射线看起来like the sun is right behind the cloud is that the light coming from the sun has been reflected by that cloud, downward to the ground , through a hole in the same cloud.That is why it looks like the sun is right behind the cloud and you can trace the rays back to a specific spot in the cloud.
Good thought, but no...
The answer is as stated above. This is an optical illusion created when you look towards the origin of the rays; because you are looking into the distance, they appear to converge at the point where you see them appear (the cloud).
Sun rays
Cool story,yet I’m quite sure those rays should not converge so soon unless the sun is a lot closer than we’er told
Sorry...
you can be as sure as you like, but that's not going to change the fact that the sun is millions of miles away...
My silhouette
While seated at my home office, I clearly observed my image bending over, looking in a clothing dresser. I had no fear or trepidation, as I in fact recalled completing the same action some 4 or 5 months earlier. I waved my hand through the sun's rays, and recalled it felt cool and moist; my hand and arm did not disturb the image. It lasted for over an hour, simply fading away over time. It was an odd experience that even now, I am unable to understand or comprehend. I would welcome your insight.
Add a comment