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Plankton in the Clouds

Posted by timothy on from the pray-for-rain dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA is reporting that the September 1997 Pacific hurricane, Nora, was able to deliver sea salt and plankton as far inland as Oklahoma. The tale-tell signs of prismatic light halos around cirrus clouds pointed to ice crystals with nucleated hexagons and sea-salted clouds. Various proposals have been made previously about such 'life in the clouds' proposals on other planets like Jupiter and Venus."

1 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Moon rainbows by ojQj · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A few years ago, in Houston I saw a pale rainbow around the almost-full moon at night. It was a very cold night for Houston (below freezing), but since it was Houston, the humidity in the air was very high. Someone explained to me that the rainbow was because the humidity in the air was frozen into ice crystals which then had special refractory properties.

    Based on this article, I have to ask: Could saltwater have been a better explanation for this beautiful phenomenon? Does anybody here know?