What is This phenomenon, known as?

This phenomenon is called reflection, and it’s what happens when light bounces off a surface like a mirror.

Imagine you're playing with a ball in a hallway. When you kick the ball toward a wall, it hits the wall and then bounces back to you, that's just like how light works when it reflects. The surface (like the wall or a mirror) is what makes the light change direction.

When light hits a smooth surface, such as a shiny spoon or a mirror, it doesn’t go through the surface or get absorbed by it, instead, it bounces back, just like your ball bounces off the wall. This is called reflection.

You can see this every day when you look into a mirror, that’s why you can see yourself! The light from the room hits the mirror and comes right back to your eyes, letting you see your face clearly.

Reflection isn’t just for mirrors, it helps us see things in different ways. For example, when you shine a flashlight on a calm lake, the water acts like a mirror and reflects the light back up to you. That’s why lakes can look so shiny under the sun!