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Vacuum cloud phenomenon over the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo: British Columbia)
JAKARTA – Natural phenomena in the form of large holes in the clouds are often misunderstood as UFO sightings, such as the recent event that appeared over the Gulf of Mexico on the west coast of Florida. In fact, this appearance is a vacuum cloud. From above ground level, the clouds look extraordinary, resembling large circular pieces.
Inevitably, the natural phenomenon that was successfully immortalized by NASA on January 30 2024 caused a stir. These clouds often fuel speculation that they originate from flying saucers or other unknown phenomena. However, this phenomenon was actually triggered by aircraft activity.
Reporting from Interesting Engineering, Wednesday (6/3/2024), the cavity cloud phenomenon has attracted attention since the 1940s, but it was only in 2010 and 2011 that the mystery began to be solved.
A team led by scientists at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) debunked all these wild assumptions. They determined that cavum clouds are formed by airplanes passing through altocumulus clouds.
Altocumulus clouds consist of supercooled liquid water droplets and are located at mid-level in the Earth's atmosphere. According to a NASA blog, supercooling occurs when these droplets are pure water, indicating a lack of particles such as dust, and bacteria, around which ice crystals could form.
Altocumulus clouds cover about 8 percent of the Earth's surface and maintain a supercooled state of around -15°C. However, when a plane passes through these clouds, the air interacts with the plane's propellers, triggering adiabatic expansion.
This expansion further cools the water by an additional 20°C or more, forcing these pure water droplets to freeze. As the droplets freeze, they combine, grow in size, and eventually fall from the sky, leaving a void in the cloud layer.
As ice crystals fall, they appear as trails of ethereal precipitation called virga. These tracks never reach the ground, further adding to the mystery of the cloud.