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An image can be real or virtual. A real image is formed when the rays of light actually intersect after reflection. A virtual image is formed when the light rays after reflection do not actually intersect but appear to diverge from it (these rays of light intersect when produced backwards).
In fig (i) we can see that the light beam from the point source O is a diverging beam. After reflection from the mirror it is still a diverging beam, which appears to come from I. The image formed by a plane mirror is virtual.
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