February 14, 2016
On the day you arrived, the Earth was spinning at a thousand miles per hour, orbiting the Sun at sixty-seven thousand.
A Heart Shaped Lenticular Cloud
Birthday · February 14, 2016
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published February 14, 2016. Credit: Michael Kunze. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Can a cloud love a mountain? Perhaps not, but on a Valentine's Day like today, one might be prone to seeing heart-shaped symbols where they don't actually exist. A fleeting pareidolia, the featured heart was really a lenticular cloud that appeared one morning last July above Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand. A companion video shows the lenticular cloud was mostly stationary in the sky but shifted and vibrated with surrounding winds. The cloud's red color was caused by the Sun rising off the frame to the right. Lenticular clouds are somewhat rare but can form in air that passes over a mountain. Then, vertical eddies may form where rising air cools past the dew point causing water carried by the air to condense into droplets. Unfortunately, this amazing sight made the fascinated videographer late for breakfast. Follow APOD on: Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter
Image credit: Michael Kunze