MSGID: 1:317/3 62813ff6   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   May 15, 2022 - "Go!" written by cloud off the coast of Chile   
      
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      In a letter to a friend dated January 14, 1843, Henry David Thoreau   
      wrote, “You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds…”. People   
   have   
      long been talking to, gazing at, and imagining seeing things in clouds   
      as they look upward from Earth. These days, we can study the clouds by   
      looking down on the from space—and the clouds themselves may sometimes   
      seem to talk to us.   
      
      On May 6, 2022, a full 179 years after Thoreau admitted to cloud   
      conversations, that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer   
      (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a   
      remarkable configuration of clouds off the coast of Chile, which seemed   
      to be urging “Go!”. Maybe the clouds were sports fans, or—and much   
   more   
      likely—cloud and atmospheric conditions created patterns that, when   
      combined with human imagination, appeared to create a word in the sky,   
      just waiting to be captured by MODIS.   
      
      The Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile is covered in large banks of   
      cloud most of the time, and the region is famous for the formation of   
      bizarre patterns. The dark, lacy swirl that forms the “G” is a type of   
      open-cell cumulus pattern, while the thick white cloud is basically   
      closed-cell marine stratocumulus. The dark breaks in the white cloud   
      bank that appear to form the “o” and “!” are simply areas without   
      cloud, allowing the dark waters of the ocean to show through and are   
      most likely created by wind patterns.   
      
      Back in Thoreau’s day—actually until 1960 when NASA launched the first   
      weather satellite—no one had noticed that clouds over the ocean   
      frequently appeared to be formed in hexagonal cells with diameters   
      ranging from 50 – 100 km (30-60 miles). These cell patterns are created   
      by mesoscale cellular convection (MCC). In open cells, air is falling   
      in the center of the hexagon and rising around the edges, so clouds   
      formed at the edges, creating a lacy-looking pattern. In closed-cell   
      clouds, air is rising in the center, so the hexagon is filled with   
      fluffy cloud. There is also a third type of cloud formed by mesoscale   
      cellular convection—an intermediate type with a radial structure that   
      looks something like flowers or a wagon wheel. These are called   
      actinoform clouds, derived from the Greek word “aktinos”, meaning   
      “ray”. There are at least 2 actinoform clouds within the lacy   
      open-celled cloud that makes up the “G”.   
      
      Image Facts   
      Satellite:  Aqua   
      Date Acquired: 5/6/2022   
      Resolutions:  1km (2.7 MB),  500m (7.6 MB),  250m (5.4 MB)   
      Bands Used: 1,4,3   
      Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC   
      
      
      
   https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-05-15   
       
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