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VORTEX STREET IN THE WAKE OF SELKIRK ISLAND
LANDSAT 7

Here is a rare meteorological phenomenon caught by LANDSAT 7 on 9/15/1999. In the southwest of the scene is Alejandro Selkirk Island, a squarish island that rises almost vertically 1 mile above the southern pacific. A boundary layer that sandwiches a saturated, unstable layer of clouds between two more stable layers is broken by the island, causing a formation of vortices known as a Karman Vortex Street. While Karman Vortex Streets have been created in the laboratory from smoke or soap films, it is rare to view them in nature, and they are seldom this well-defined.

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