# 084 Sun setting in the Namib desert Photo by Giles Laurent

- By: Giles Laurent
- Date: Taken on 24 July 2025, 18:30:45
- Classification: Photograph
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:084_Sun_setting_in_the_Namib_desert_Photo_by_Giles_Laurent.jpg)
- Rights: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
- Picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/084_Sun_setting_in_the_Namib_desert_Photo_by_Giles_Laurent.jpg/1920px-084_Sun_setting_in_the_Namib_desert_Photo_by_Giles_Laurent.jpg
- Who can see it: Kids profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Sun setting in the Namib desert, Namibia. The sun is not a perfect circle on the horizon due to atmospheric refraction, a phenomenon where Earth's atmosphere bends sunlight. As the sun appears near the horizon, its light passes through a thicker, denser layer of the atmosphere compared to when it's high in the sky. This denser air refracts, or bends, the lower edge of the sun's image more than the upper edge, causing the light from the bottom to be lifted higher than the light from the top, which squashes the sun into an oval or flattened disk. The wavy or rippled appearance of the sun's bottom edge is caused by atmospheric turbulence. While atmospheric refraction flattens the sun into an oval, turbulence within the lowest layers of the atmosphere creates the wavy motion. This phenomenon is a type of mirage caused by a temperature inversion, where cooler, denser air is trapped near the ground underneath warmer, less dense air. This layering effect further distorts the light, exaggerating the jagged, wavy appearance of the sun's lower edge. These mirages are most common over oceans or flat deserts at sunrise or sunset.