Why does the sun appear closer when it is at the horizon?

Answer 1

When the sun is at the horizon, its light has to travel through a lot more atmosphere to reach your eyes than when the sun is directly overhead. The atmosphere acts as a magnifying glass, making the sun appear larger.

Answer 2

When the sun is at the horizon your eyes see it in comparison to the landscape. Your brain uses this information to ascertain the size of the sun. Your brain then fools itself into thinking the suz has grown larger. When the sun as at the noon time point, you have fewer items to relate it to and your brain thinks that it is smaller. It's all an optical illusion...the same way the moon looks larger when it is lower in the sky. You can test all of this by donning a welders mask and measuring the sun against a ruler held out stretched (DO NOT LOOK INTO THE SUN WITHOUT SERIOUS SERIOUS PROTECTION). Do this at both points when the sun is at it's highest and lowest in the sky and you will find that no matter how large it looks it is always the same size.

Answer 3

It's an optical illusion, caused by how our mind judges the size of objects near the horizon vs. up high in the sky.

The "lens" effect of the atmosphere actually causes objects to look smaller from top-to-bottom than they really are, resulting in a slighly oval shape for round objects.

Answer 4

I won't be satisfied until someone finds a way to directly measure the size of the image on the human retina for each case. It sure looks bigger to me on the horizon.