Gravity Waves from aboveAstronaut Alexander Gerst captured this photo above the Aleutian Islands fro
Gravity Waves from aboveAstronaut Alexander Gerst captured this photo above the Aleutian Islands from the International Space Station. This is a remarkably cool look at gravity waves in the Earth’s atmosphere.A gravity wave is a wave where gravity is the restoring force. These waves are the result of winds running into the islands. When that happens, air is pushed upward over the land, but that disturbs the atmosphere above.The atmosphere is separated into layers, so if air is pushed upward, it will eventually run into a layer that it can’t penetrate. Instead, when the air is pushed up, it causes the boundaries between layers to oscillate up and down. These boundaries often occur at the levels where clouds form, so when the air is driven up over the islands, it creates waves where clouds are present and then missing.For this to happen across an entire island chain, the wind direction would have to be very consistent across the entire region. This truly is a remarkable photo.-JBBImage credit: https://twitter.com/Astro_Alex/status/511805315000832000Read more:https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/666853986708982 -- source link
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