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Consider sunlight entering the Earth’s atmosphere at sunrise and sunset−that is, at a 90° incident angle. Taking the boundary between nearly empty space and the atmosphere to be sudden, calculate the angle of refraction for sunlight. This lengthens the time the Sun appears to be above the horizon, both at sunrise and sunset. Now construct a problem in which you determine the angle of refraction (or different models 01 the atmosphere, such as various layers of varying density. Your instructor may wish to guide you on the level of complexity to consider and on how the index at retraction varies with air density.
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College Physics
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