Visual artist Michael Karlovich of Recursia Studio created this new optical illusion that tricks your brain into seeing dazzling rays emanating from the center of the design.
The optical illusion, nicknamed the "scintillating starburst" is made of concentric wreaths or star polygons, with intersection points that the brain sees as "bright points." As those bright points line up from the inner wreath to the outer ones, the brain creates rays through them even though there aren't any in the actual graphic.
From Live Science:
The rays are visible regardless of what color the lines and background are as long as they contrast, the researchers found. This can also make the rays change color; for example, putting white wreaths on a black background makes people see much darker, but equally bright, rays.
"Our preliminary pilot experiments with color suggest what is most important is that there should be a high amount of contrast between the color of the background and the color of the lines making up the design," Karlovich said. "The higher the contrast, the stronger the rays."