This Week's "Where in the Universe?" Challenge

By Nancy Atkinson - May 14, 2008 at 7:49 AM UTC | Observing
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Here's your image for this week's "Where in the Universe?" challenge. Take a look at the image and before proceeding to the end of this post, make your guess as to what location in the universe is represented here. It could be anywhere -- nothing is off limits for this challenge! Near or distant, far and wide, Universe Today spares no expense when it comes to searching for unique and unusual images to test your visual knowledge of our universe! Give yourself an extra point for guessing (or knowing) the feature shown here, and another point for naming the spacecraft that took this image. Just a couple more ticks on the timer here before revealing the awesome power of this week's image....

Have you made your guess?

Here's the answer:

These are cloud vortices found near Alaska, here on Earth. These are called von Karman cloud vortices, named after Theodore von Karman, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These vortices near the Aleutian Islands were photographed by an Expedition 15 crewmember on the International Space Station. The vortices are created by the wind encountering a barrier such as an island, then changing direction and velocity and forming eddies in the wind and subsequently, in cloud patterns. The image was taken almost a year ago, on May 23, 2007 and the location of the image is at 51.1 degrees north latitude and 178.8 degrees west longitude.

In the cloud image above, the islands disturb the wind flow. As a prevailing wind encounters the island, the disturbance in the flow propagates downstream of the island in the form of a double row of vortices which alternate their direction of rotation. The animation below (courtesy of Cesareo de la Rosa Siqueira at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) shows how a von Karman vortex develops behind a cylinder moving through a fluid.

For you camera buffs out there, the image was taken with a Kodak DCS760C Electronic Still Camera.

How'd you do?

Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com