April 6, 2004
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Unusually Strong Cyclone Off the Brazilian Coast
Birthday · April 6, 2004
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APOD published April 6, 2004. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
How did this huge cyclone form? An unusually strong storm -- perhaps the strongest storm in the recorded history of the South Atlantic Ocean -- crossed the coast of Brazil last week. Cyclones this powerful, classified by some as the first ever Category 1 Hurricane, are very rare in the South Atlantic. Tropical cyclones are large regions of low pressure with little vertical wind shear that typically form over regions of warm water, which power the cyclone through evaporation. Reports of relatively cold air in the center indicate, however, that this storm was extratropical. The storm was dubbed Caterina by local meteorologists, although no formal naming precedents exist in this part of the world.