How are mirror images formed?

Answer 1

What is an image?

We see objects, because they either emit or reflect light. We visually identify objects by the pattern of light that they emit or reflect. We gather some portion of that light on a detector (our eyes). In interpreting the pattern, we implicitly assume that the light traveled in a straight line from the object to the detector.

A real image of an object produces the same pattern of light as the object does somewhere in space. Some portion of the light from the real image reaches our detector along a straight-line path. The detector cannot distinguish between light coming from the object and light coming from the image. We interpret the same patterns in the same way. A virtual image is the apparent position from which a pattern of light reaches our detector, if we make the assumption that it has traveled from its source to the detector along a straight-line path. Virtual images are formed when light from an object or from an image is reflected or bend on the way to the detector DR Amir

Answer 2

Mirror images are created when light rays bounce off a reflective surface, such as a mirror, and are redirected back towards the observer. The image appears reversed left to right because light rays reflect in a specular manner. Our brains interpret the reflected image as identical to the original but reversed.