News tagged with clouds
Physicists find charge separation in a molecule consisting of two identical atoms
Physicists from the University of Stuttgart show the first experimental proof of a molecule consisting of two identical atoms that exhibits a permanent electric dipole moment. This observation contradicts ...
Nov 25, 2011 |
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What caused a giant arrow-shaped cloud on Saturn's moon Titan?
(PhysOrg.com) -- Why does Titan, Saturn's largest moon, have what looks like an enormous white arrow about the size of Texas on its surface?
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Aug 16, 2011 |
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New Interstellar Boundary Explorer data show heliosphere's long-theorized bow shock does not exist
For the last few decades, space scientists have generally accepted that the bubble of gas and magnetic fields generated by the sun – known as the heliosphere – moves through space, creating three ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
May 10, 2012 |
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Revolutionary new camera reveals the dark side of the Universe
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new camera that will revolutionise the field of submillimetre astronomy has been unveiled on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii SCUBA-2 is far more sensitive and powerful ...
Dec 06, 2011 |
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2012: Shadow of the Dark Rift
(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most bizarre theories about 2012 has built up with very little attention to facts. This idea holds that a cosmic alignment of the sun, Earth, the center of our galaxy -- or perhaps ...
Dec 22, 2011 |
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Spitzer finds solid buckyballs in space
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres ...
Feb 22, 2012 |
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Alien world is blacker than coal
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet - a distant, Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight ...
Aug 11, 2011 |
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Astronomers find pristine clouds of primordial gas from the early Universe
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, astronomers have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The composition of the gas matches theoretical predictions, ...
Nov 10, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (15) |
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Quantum mechanics enables perfectly secure cloud computing
Researchers have succeeded in combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography and have shown that perfectly secure cloud computing can be achieved using the principles of ...
Jan 19, 2012 |
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In the heart of Cygnus, NASA's Fermi reveals a cosmic-ray cocoon
(PhysOrg.com) -- The constellation Cygnus, now visible in the western sky as twilight deepens after sunset, hosts one of our galaxy's richest-known stellar construction zones. Astronomers viewing the region ...
Nov 28, 2011 |
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A planetary system from the early Universe
A group of European astronomers has discovered an ancient planetary system that is likely to be a survivor from one of the earliest cosmic eras, 13 billion years ago. The system consists of the star HIP 11952 ...
Mar 27, 2012 |
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ENASA satellite finds Earth's clouds are getting lower
(PhysOrg.com) -- Earth's clouds got a little lower -- about one percent on average -- during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 22, 2012 |
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Disaster looms for gas cloud falling into Milky Way's central black hole
The normally quiet neighborhood around the massive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is being invaded by a gas cloud that is destined in just a few years to be ripped, shredded and largely eaten.
Dec 14, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (11) |
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Herschel Space Observatory discovers source of cosmic dust in a stellar explosion
(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's Herschel Space Observatory is helping unravel the mystery of where cosmic dust comes from. Thanks to the resolution and sensitivity of Herschel, astronomers have been able to detect ...
Jul 07, 2011 |
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Study shows clouds don't cause climate change
Clouds only amplify climate change, says a Texas A&M University professor in a study that rebuts recent claims that clouds are actually the root cause of climate change.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 06, 2011 |
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Cloud
A cloud is a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity, such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae. Clouds are studied in the nephology or cloud physics branch of meteorology.
On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. They thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance at the base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may appear colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds look darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.
For more information about Cloud, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
