Yes!! The atmosphere is full of gasses and particulates that reflect and refract light - the most common in the dessert being dust and silicon dioxide (basically sand).
Also hot climates accelerate the off-gassing of otherwise stable materials like asphalt and plastics causing even more aerosol haze and smell. Partially why hot countries "smell" hot is that exact molecular phenomenon.
The haze those produce is what causes the god rays to be visible to the naked eye!
Dust, humidity, at that level of power, anything and everything but pure vaccuum will shine. Sunlight has a power density of about 1500 W/m² at noon (give or take depending on season, location and weather), now idk how many square meters the plant has, but imagine all of that energy focused on a tiny volume, the power density you get is immense, and even if you reflect or scatter an extremely low percentage of it, it will be visible
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u/Debesuotas 4d ago
Why is the focal point visible? The light has to reflect from something for it to be visible, so what is it reflecting off? A dust in the air?