Shafts of sunlight

grater | 09:57 Wed 07th Sep 2005 | Science

4 Answers

When sunlight comes through gaps in clouds and shows up as beams of light, they are at wide angles to each other. As the sun is millions of miles away, surely they should be parallel?Grater

first ever mobile phone??

naptha

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Space

They are parallel.
It's the perspective that gives them different angles.

dk_psy

not refraction?

-- answer removed --

Tim Baxter

If they are parallel it seems to me that they would be converging at the sun. But it appears (again to me) that the shafts' angle is so huge (maybe 100 degrees) that they must be converging on an object only a few miles away. I'm probably wrong but I don't get the perspective answer. I know it certainly isn't refraction.

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