What Causes a Shadow to Change Shape?

Your shadow changes shape because of where the light is coming from. When the sun is high in the sky, your shadow is short and round. But when it’s low near the ground, like at sunrise or sunset, your shadow gets long and stretched out, just like you're playing with a giant magnifying glass!

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Examples

Your shadow stretches long like a worm at sunrise.
At noon, your shadow is small enough to fit inside a coffee cup.
A cat's shadow becomes a long, skinny rectangle when it walks near a wall in the evening.

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Categories: Physics · light,shadow,optics,geometry