> Which of the following is a type of mirage, or an optical illusion caused byatmospheric conditions?Considering Fujita scale, Kuiper belt, Fata Morgana and Eiffel Tower, the answeris: Fata Morgana. Photo courtesy: Timpaananen from WikipediaA Fata Morgana is an optical illusion,usually seen while sailing on a large body of water. Light and atmosphericconditions can bend light so that objects on the horizon appear to be up in theair, or much larger than they are. Sailors have been baffled by this phenomenonfor millennia.Fata Morgana is an incredibly complex mirage that occurs in very particularatmospheric conditions. More specifically, it is your brain assuming that whenlight hits your eyes, it arrived there in a straight path between you and theobject reflecting the light. So if light is bent on its way toward you, yourbrain will think the object is where it would be if the light's path wasstraight. This is why when you are looking down on a surface of water, objectsunder the surface will appear to be in a different spot than they actually are.The human brain doesn't automatically account for the refraction.In the case of ghost ships and mind-bending floating cities, the answer is notquite as mythical as the Fata Morgana's origins in fairy lore. In reality, thelight reflecting from a distant object such as a ship is bent downward as itpasses through the colder, denser air near the surface of the ocean, and theimage is perceived further up in the air than it really is. This works to similar effect in dry environments. In deserts, the absence ofwater bends the light up toward your eyes so that you perceive things as furtherdown they actually are (ie the mirage of the forever-unreachable oasis). Check out a few photos of the phenomenon below. The tale of the Flying Dutchman ghost ship likely came from sailors seeing shipscaught up in Fata Morgana. Photo courtesy: public domain.Fata Morgana in LakeSuperior in 2015. Photo courtesy: ABC27.