Detail View: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection: Contrail Clutter over Georgia
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Title:
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Contrail Clutter over Georgia
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Explanation:
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Artificial clouds made by humans may become so common they change the Earth's climate. The long thin cloud streaks that dominate the above satellite photograph [ http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=190208 ] of Georgia [ http://www.state.ga.us/ ] are contrails [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail ], cirrus clouds [ http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/hgh/crs.rxml ] created by airplanes. The exhaust of an airplane engine can create a contrail [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031001.html ] by saturating the surrounding air with extra moisture. The wings of a plane can similarly create contrails [ http://web.mit.edu/aiaa/www/ ] by dropping the temperature and causing small ice-crystals to form. Contrails have become more than an oddity - they may be significantly increasing the cloudiness [ http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/apr/HQ_04140_clouds_climate.html ] of Earth, reflecting sunlight back into space by day, and heat radiation [ http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarmA5.html ] back to Earth even at night. The effect on climate is a topic of much research [ http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl9919.html ]. You can help NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/F_Contrails_5-8.html ] measure the actual abundance of contrails by participating in a contrail [ http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/contrails/ ] counting exercise that runs over the next two days.
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Credit and Copyright:
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MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ], Terra Satellite [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]
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facet_where:
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Georgia
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facet_what:
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DMSP
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original url:
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041013.html
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UID:
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SPD-APOD-ap041013
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