Clouds Swirl Down Von Karman Street

Looking like a piece of fancy needlework, clouds form a
complex double row of vortices in these new images from NASA’s
Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer on the Terra satellite.
The turbulent atmospheric flow pattern is known as a von
Karman vortex street, named for scientist Theodore von Karman,
who calculated the conditions that would create this natural
special effect. Von Karman was a professor of aeronautics at
the California Institute of Technology and was one of the
principal founders of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.

The images are available online at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/misr

JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.