22 August 2010

The world's largest smoke ring was blown by...

... the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.  An additional photo and explanation is at Discovery News.

3 comments:

  1. From left field ....

    When I was a small child in Texas I saw a diffuse parti-colored ring high in the northwest sky just after dark. This would have been in the mid-60's.

    I've always thought it was debris from a Nevada test thrown into the upper atmosphere being ionized.

    Does anyone else remember this?

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  2. Anon, since it occurred "just after dark," I would bet you a nickel (but no more than that) that what you were seeing was a noctilucent cloud -

    http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1667&bih=895&q=noctilucent+clouds&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

    stan

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  3. Stan, could be, but as I recall it seemed to roll and changed color more rapidly than clouds.

    I have done a few searches in the past and turned up zilch on this.

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