What Makes a Shadow Look ‘Stretchy’ or ‘Short’?

Imagine you're standing outside on a sunny day, and your shadow is right under your feet. But when the sun moves lower in the sky, like at sunset, your shadow gets really long, almost like it's stretching! That’s because light comes from far away, and when the angle changes, shadows change too. It's like playing with a flashlight: if you move it closer or farther, the shadow on the wall grows bigger or smaller. Simple as that!

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Examples

  1. A person's shadow at noon is short, but it stretches long when the sun goes down.
  2. A tree casts a small shadow in the middle of the day but a long one at sunrise.
  3. Your hand on a wall creates a bigger shadow if you hold a flashlight close to it.

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Categories: Physics · optics· light· shadow · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.