Sometimes things happen that attract particularly attention, as happened to JP Petit. Watching the sunset from Marseille, France, he saw some rugged mountains that stood in front of the sun. This, which could be normal, actually is not so, since those mountains seemed to come out of the Mediterranean Sea. It was so strange to him that he decided to take a photo to document the rare appearance.
Petit unknowingly witnessed the Canigou effect. But what exactly is this phenomenon? Why happens?
Sailors once believed that they were ghost mountains; However, there are no mountains in the Mediterranean, but yes 165 miles (265,542km) away, in the Pyrenees. There the Canigou Massif is located, whose silhouette was seen by Petit. Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explained that »there is no direct line of sight to the Massif due to the curvature of the Earth. The view is only possible because light is refracted around the planet. Basically the atmosphere is denser at lower levels and acts as a lens to bend the sun's rays around the horizon. And he went on to say that mirages do the same thing, but that in this case they weren't necessary, just "constant clean air and a long stretch of sea."
»This observation is not fortuitous. Alain Origne has devoted himself to studying this phenomenon and can predict when it will happen again. He'd like to hear about other long-distance sightings, ”Cowley added. So if you have a chance to see him, take some pictures and get in touch with him through his web page, in which he uploads photos and animations of the spectacular Canigou effect.
Alain Origne's Canigou effect schematic.
Have you heard of this amazing phenomenon? What do you think?
Because of what is said in the article, depending on this effect, the time at which the sun sets over the horizon should vary a lot, it is more this effect would really determine the time of sunset, something that does not actually happen to scale significant.