So, International Space Station Astronaut Chris Hadfield—commander of Expedition 35,
so you better take him seriously, folks—tweeted a picture of a volcanic
island in the Atlantic that looks like the head of a giant fishbone
skeleton made of clouds.
Mmmmmm, herringbone clouds. Click to icthyenate.
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
I don’t know what to add to this. I mean, it looks like the island is the head of a giant fishbone skeleton made of clouds.
FYI, the island is Saint Helena,
an isolated volcanic isle about 16 x 8 kilometers (10 x 5 miles) in
size. And by isolated, I mean yikes: The nearest large landmass is 2000
kilometers away. It’s about a third of the way across the Atlantic west
from Africa to South America. The volcano hasn’t erupted for millions of
years, so it’s quite dead. About 4000 people live there.
I love the cloud pattern. These clouds are called cirrocumulus, and
are sometimes referred to as herringbone (if they appear as long lines
like seen here) or mackerel clouds (because they can also form small
clumps that look like fish scales). They’re made of tiny ice crystals.
If they are heated from below the air rises (this is called convection)
as the ice crystals melt, causing gaps in the clouds to form. If there's
also a steady wind—as there is over Saint Helena island—the convection
cells get blown downwind, forming the long fishbone appearance.
I see these all the time forming over the Rockies west of my hometown
of Boulder. The pattern can stretch for dozens of kilometers, but I’ve
never seen them look quite as much like an intact fish skeleton before;
this looks like it could’ve been taken from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It
even has fins!
Commander Hadfield tweets pictures from space like this all the time. Follow him on Twitter; trust me. You’ll be glad you did.
posted by Pieface @ 9:44 AM
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