The phenomenon of ships “floating” above the sea, or scientifically Fata Morgana, was captured by a photographer on Wednesday afternoon (8/5) off the coast of Km.
It’s the ship Achilles on the Skyros-Kimi-Skyros route, and in the snapshot it looks like it’s in the air, but in reality its image is reversed, the result of a phenomenon known as the Fata Morgana.
“Flying” ship from km
What is the fata morgana responsible for the film?
The Fata Morgana phenomenon, an optical illusion caused by a temperature inversion touching the atmospheric layers, belongs to meteorological phenomena.
In particular, objects located on the horizon such as islands, rocks, ships, or icebergs appear composite, meaning two images of the same object are inverted.
The first mention of a “Fata Morgana” in English dates back to 1818, a similar phenomenon seen in the Straits of Messina.
This is caused by the interaction of warm surface air and dense cold air near the ground surface, which acts like a refracting lens, forming a vertically inverted image as if the distant straight image were floating.
A Fata Morgana phenomenon usually occurs in the morning after a cold night.
The first reference to “fata morgana” in English dates back to 1818, when a similar hallucination was observed in the Straits of Messina between Calabria and Sicily.
This is a common occurrence in high mountain valleys, such as Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where the phenomenon is magnified due to the curvature of the valley floor compensating for the curvature of the Earth.
It can be seen on very calm mornings in Arctic seas or on mostly ice-covered Antarctic shelves.