Cloud formations have long stirred the human imagination, leading us to see fanciful figures of dragons and sheep. But some clouds, as seen by NASA satellites, astronauts and spacecraft, are just as wild as anything we could dream up.
This might look like a closeup shot of a sheep, but it’s actually a view of cloud vortices that formed off Saint Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean in 2012. The image comes from NASA’s Terra satellite, which is responsible for delivering quite a few stunning cloud photos.
NASA describes how this unusual pattern comes from the wind striking the island’s mountains: “As it blows around the island, the air spins on the leeward side, much like a flowing river forms eddies on the downriver side of a piling. The spinning wind forms intricate — and mathematically predictable — patterns.”
Caption by
Amanda Kooser
/ Photo by NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
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