The image of an object when seen in a mirror is called what?

The image of an object seen in a mirror is called a virtual image. It is called “virtual” because light rays do not actually meet at the image’s apparent location; instead, the reflected rays spread outward and the eye traces them backward to a point behind the mirror.

For a flat plane mirror, the virtual image appears the same distance behind the mirror as the object is in front of it. It is also upright and laterally inverted, which is why writing appears reversed when viewed in an ordinary mirror. The image is the same size as the object, unlike the enlarged or reduced images produced by some curved mirrors and lenses.

A virtual image cannot normally be projected onto a screen because no real light converges there. This contrasts with a real image, formed where light rays genuinely meet, such as the image made by a projector lens. Convex mirrors and flat mirrors produce virtual images, while concave mirrors can produce either virtual or real images depending on the object’s distance.