What are superior mirages?

A superior mirage is when faraway things look closer because of how light bends through hot air.

Imagine you're playing on a sunny day, and the road in front of you looks like it has little waves, that’s called a mirage, too! But with a superior mirage, instead of seeing wavy roads, you might see something really far away, like a boat or even a building, floating in the air, almost as if it's on top of the road.

Hot air near the ground is less dense than cooler air above it. When light travels from something far away, like a ship on the sea, it bends as it moves through these layers of air. This bending makes the ship appear higher up, or even above the horizon, giving the illusion that it's closer.

Think of a hot sidewalk on a summer day. You see wavy lines because light from the sky bends over the hot surface. In a superior mirage, instead of seeing wavy lines, you might see something real, like a distant building or another car, just floating in midair!

It’s like looking at a toy boat on a lake, but it seems to be flying above the water because of how light plays tricks with hot air.