Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
An astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) takes pictures of the clouds over Sumatra.
Earth Observatory NASA informs that the astronaut’s shot also features smaller images of the islands of Bangka and Belitung adjacent to the Java Sea and the West Coast of Kalimantan.
The photo shows the long, bright clouds produced by a thunderstorm that cast a dark shadow over the plains and sea below.
The photo also shows the brightest zone of sun exposure over the ocean highlighting the strait between Sumatra and other islands, including Singapore which is seen hidden under a thunderstorm.
The Sumatran sky portrait was taken by an astronaut of the expedition crew 65 on Sunday (18/7) using a Nikon D5 digital camera with a focal length of 35 millimeters. At the time of taking the photo, the wind was blowing from the Northeast.
After crossing the Java Sea, moist air will rise as it is heated. This warming will most likely cause thunderstorms to appear on every island affected by these hot clouds.
The crests of some storms are cut off by the wind to form clouds with a flat top surface called anvil clouds.
From the photo it is known that the runway cloud begins over Bangka Island stretching for about 200 kilometers across Sumatra to the Indian Ocean.
Other runway clouds moved towards the Barisan Mountains and small cumulus clouds also formed above the Mentawai Islands line.
A cloud-free zone appears over the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean. Both zones lie downwind of the mainland of Kalimantan and Sumatra with air that appears to descend to sea level which usually suppresses cloud formation.
NASA explain cumulonimbus clouds or piles of rain clouds formed due to strong convection of hot, humid, and unstable air.
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Photo of storm clouds over Sumatra (Photo: (doc. Nasa Earth Observatory))- – |
If there is sufficient atmospheric humidity, the water droplets will condense as the air mass encounters cooler air at higher altitudes.
That air mass also expands and cools as it rises due to a decrease in atmospheric pressure, a process known as adiabatic cooling.
This type of convection is common in tropical latitudes all year round and during the summer at higher latitudes.
Through this photo, the astronauts of the expedition crew 65 have provided an excellent example of how the characteristics of cumulonimbus clouds are related.
(ttf/fjr)
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