THE NEBULA UFO ©

Cloud

A cloud is a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another plenetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity (clouds can also occur as masses of material in interstellar space, where they are called and interstellar clouds nebulae.) The branch of meteorology in which clouds are studied is nephology.

On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or ice crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance of the clouds at their base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background, and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may be colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds would appear darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.