QUICK FACTS
Where is it? In the middle of the Pacific Ocean
What’s in the photo? A circular, open-celled cloud above the ocean surface
Which satellite took the photo? NASA’s Terra satellite
When was it taken? Sept. 3, 2014
This striking satellite image reveals a giant, near-perfect cloud circle that formed in the heart of the Pacific Ocean more than a decade ago. While this type of cloud is not uncommon, it is extremely rare to find one isolated and in the middle of nowhere, experts say.
The strange structure, which is approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) wide, was spotted “a few thousand kilometers southwest of the Hawaiian Islands” by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA‘s Terra satellite, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
The fluffy ring is made up of cumulus clouds that have been sculpted into a Rayleigh-Benard convection cell — a meteorological phenomenon powered by the rising and falling of…
