Question

What is called atmospheric refraction ? Which phenomenon results from it ?

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Solution

Verified by  GMS

Earth’s atmosphere consists of layers of different densities and hence different refractive indices. The lower layers being denser than the upper ones. Thus, the light from objects is refracted at each layer of the atmosphere. In addition, physical situations like temperature are not steady; thus, the apparent position of the object also fluctuates.
This phenomenon of refraction of light due to layers of atmosphere of varying densities is called atmospheric refraction.
Phenomenons like ‘twinkling of stars’, ‘early sunrise’ and ‘delayed sunset’ occur due to atmospheric refraction.