The history of the Novaya Zemlya effect, a polar mirage
March 15, 2016 8:28 AM Subscribe
In 1596, Willem Barentsz and his crew went searching for the Northeast passage for a third time. It did not go well, and the crew was forced to spend a winter on Novaya Zemlya. On November 3 they saw the sun go down, and did not expect to see it again until February 8. However on January 24, 1597, three of the crew caught a glimpse of the sun. Three days later, Barents himself saw the sun, "in its full roundness, just free of the horizon." They had witnessed what would be know as the the Novaya Zemlya effect (YouTube of such an event; PDF with history and details).
If you'd like to read more about those early efforts to find an alternate route to the Far East, Archive.org has The three voyages of William Barentz to the Arctic regions, (1594, 1595, and 1596), published in 1876.
If you'd like to read more about those early efforts to find an alternate route to the Far East, Archive.org has The three voyages of William Barentz to the Arctic regions, (1594, 1595, and 1596), published in 1876.
I think the mirages at the end of the PDF are even cooler. Floating mountains.
posted by nat at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2016
posted by nat at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2016
I wonder if this explains certain UFO sightings, Mulder.
posted by I-baLL at 8:45 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by I-baLL at 8:45 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, certain things have been seen over Novaya Zemlya that look like the sun but aren't.
(Nifty effect, though.)
posted by McCoy Pauley at 8:50 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Nifty effect, though.)
posted by McCoy Pauley at 8:50 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
“The sun is a thief: she lures the sea
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:05 AM on March 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:05 AM on March 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
I wonder if there are any photos of similar effects from space — glimmers of the Sun peeking out from behind the Earth maybe. I can't figure out search terms that don't just get me pictures of Arnie though.
posted by lucidium at 9:47 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 9:47 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
There are some related effects - I am not sure I trust the daily mail to have this totally correct, but I found this By searching for "atmospheric refraction astronaut."
posted by nat at 10:33 AM on March 15, 2016
posted by nat at 10:33 AM on March 15, 2016
And from the same search, an early space flight discussion of "the flattened sun". No pics though.
posted by nat at 10:53 AM on March 15, 2016
posted by nat at 10:53 AM on March 15, 2016
More on this general topic from Wikipedia: mirage of astronomical objects.
Bad Astronomy: Sunsets are quite interesting.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:12 AM on March 15, 2016
Bad Astronomy: Sunsets are quite interesting.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:12 AM on March 15, 2016
We used to live on the beach in Los Angeles. I loved the many mirages the weather often afforded. There were lots of inverted ships floating above the horizon (like the mountain in the pdf). There were also many times when the atmospheric optics would stretch the looks of distant coastline cliffs in Malibu and Palos Verdes so greatly that they looked like tremendous walls hundreds of feet high. Sometimes, Catalina Island would seem to double in height, with land bridges spanning outward from peaks. With it happening before you, it's simple enough to watch these mutations changing shape moment to moment. I could stare at this stuff for hours!
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 11:35 AM on March 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 11:35 AM on March 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
Wow, ladh, your pictures are amazing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:33 PM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:33 PM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Quite by coincidence, I think, Novaya Z is the island over which history's largest hydrogen bomb, the Tsar Bomba, exploded in 1961. 50 megatons of not-a-mirage.
posted by Twang at 2:32 PM on March 15, 2016
posted by Twang at 2:32 PM on March 15, 2016
Rather spookily, you can get physical mirages of actual matter, not just light, which is even more mind-bending than the ducting phenomena that create familiar mirages. Although even those are pretty weird if you delve into the quantum, rather than the classical, physical description of what's going on.
More prosaically, radio waves can also be ducted by atmospheric conditions, leading to stations and radar reflections appearing far beyond their normal range - a fact radio amateurs enjoy and communications engineers do not. Which is one reason I am a radio amateur, and not a communications engineer.
posted by Devonian at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
More prosaically, radio waves can also be ducted by atmospheric conditions, leading to stations and radar reflections appearing far beyond their normal range - a fact radio amateurs enjoy and communications engineers do not. Which is one reason I am a radio amateur, and not a communications engineer.
posted by Devonian at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
This is amazingly cool. The bit about Inuit observations about the sun's appearance WRT climate change from that PDF is so interesting--
"Some Inuit elders are claiming that, with the warming of the Arctic, the polar night is getting shorter and brighter, and that the Sun sometimes returns in the wrong place. [...] A warmer climate may increase the frequency of warmer air aloft, that could drift in from the south and ride above the cold surface air of the north: the conditions for the Novaya Zemlya effect."
SO INTERESTING.
posted by epanalepsis at 8:30 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Some Inuit elders are claiming that, with the warming of the Arctic, the polar night is getting shorter and brighter, and that the Sun sometimes returns in the wrong place. [...] A warmer climate may increase the frequency of warmer air aloft, that could drift in from the south and ride above the cold surface air of the north: the conditions for the Novaya Zemlya effect."
SO INTERESTING.
posted by epanalepsis at 8:30 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
> I found this By searching for "atmospheric refraction astronaut."
Cheers, nice find! The photo sequences looked really exaggerated to me, but they seem to be straight from the source.
posted by lucidium at 4:34 AM on March 17, 2016
Cheers, nice find! The photo sequences looked really exaggerated to me, but they seem to be straight from the source.
posted by lucidium at 4:34 AM on March 17, 2016
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