Mini Contest: What Is This?

Share On Facebook Published: October 28th, 2008 by admin

Enjoying the blog?


We welcome you to take the next step and join the community of gCaptain readers by sharing thoughts and opinions on the forum. Click HERE to get started today!


We are giving away a free SPOT t-shirt to the first person who can tell us about what is going on in this image.

clouds Mini Contest: What Is This?

Let us know in the comments…

Wow.  Great responses everyone.  While this wasn’t any trick question, most of you did get it correct.  Click on to see the answer and the winner…

The image is of “ship-wave-shaped” clouds or Kelvin waves in the Southern Indian Ocean from the NASA MODIS Image of the Day for yesterday, October 28, 2008.

They are called this because they resemble ship waves (or “Kelvin ship waves”), which are the V-shaped wakes left by moving objects, such as ships or even ducks.

In this case, the cloud patterns were caused by the Prince Edward Islands in the South Indian Ocean (not to be confused with the Prince Edward Island in Canada). As the wind flows past the islands, it is swept around and over it leaving a wake similar to that of a ship– hence the name “ship-wave-shaped” clouds. The pattern is not accidental or coincidental, there is a physical reason for it. Wind behaves like a fluid; when it encounters an obstacle, it must move around it, leaving behind a wake (like Von Karmann vortices), or a visible wave pattern. Ship-wave-shaped cloud patterns form as the air alternately cools and warms on the wave peaks and troughs, causing clouds to form on the peaks, but not the troughs.

(source: SpaceRef.com)

And the winner is…

Ryan Owens

Ryan if you could email us at info@captain.com we will get you that t-shirt.

Thanks again everyone for your interest and participation.

Related Posts:

Categories: Uncategorized · quiz

Tags: · ,

  • noel pantig
    an image taken from a satellite (like the ones used in google earth) wherein a ship is travelling, and the pattern of lines are the waves formed
  • John Paquet
    Clouds forming a criscross wave pattern or wake like a ship moving trough water, has they are blown over two mountain tops. Where was this picture taken? I have no idea the closest I can get to this answer is «in the sky».
  • Texino
    Those are wave clouds, which can form over mountains leaving a series of lenticular formations expanding in a triangular pattern from the base at the left. Or, a least ,it looks enough like a similar picture I saw in cloud school to make the guess.
  • My post lunch perception:
    Now it looks to me like a Nuclear reaction taking place some where. The clouds are the result of explosion and the tides are formed by the radio active emmission.
    Was that right?? I dont think so...
  • It looks like a couple of ships(or boats) cruising in the same direction which was photographed from the sky. Some clouds are passingby between the horizon and the photographer. The location may be arctic ice.
blog comments powered by Disqus


Spurs Marine - Line & Net Cutter
Fastsream
Enforce the Jones Act
Bates and Dittus
Taxes
DPOperators.org
gTrax




Important Links



RSS FEED


Subscribe Via Email

Daily Updates


Bi-Weekly Newsletter







Follow gCaptain