Empirical Earth · Test It Yourself

Clouds that seem to pass behind the Sun are an overexposure trick

The claim

“Clouds pass behind the Sun, so the Sun must be local, hanging at cloud level.”

What is measured

This is a limit of cameras and eyes, not a measurement of distance. A thin, partly transparent cloud vanishes where it crosses a blinding Sun and stays visible on either side, so it seems to pass behind. The Sun is still 93 million miles away, and the cloud is still a few miles up.

What would show this is wrong

a thin cloud that stays fully visible across the face of the Sun in a photograph. It never does, because the Sun’s glare overexposes the sensor there; the same cloud filmed against blank sky, with no bright disc behind it, shows up complete.

Sources

  1. The clouds-behind-the-Sun illusion. A fact-check of the viral local-Sun sunset videos, showing the Sun sets at the true horizon and that thin clouds crossing the Sun are washed out by its gl link
  2. Why thin clouds vanish over the Sun. Thin clouds are partly transparent, and the Sun is so bright that a camera or eye cannot tell the obscured part of the disc from the clear part, so the c link
  3. Planes through the Sun, the same trick. Videos that seem to show an aircraft flying through the Sun rely on the same overexposure effect, with the plane washing out against the glare and rea link
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