An astronaut aboard the ISS snapped a stunning photo of a cloud over the Arabian Peninsula, showcasing Earth’s beauty from above
Doha: You know, it’s wild to think about how tiny clouds are when you look at the big picture of our planet.
Recently, NASA shared this amazing photo of a single cloud over the Arabian Peninsula. An astronaut on the ISS took it back in September 2024.
Sure, clouds are cool, but this shot really shows how vast and delicate our atmosphere is.
So, this astronaut was doing a project called Crew Earth Observations, where they take loads of pictures of Earth from space.
One of those photos ended up being NASA’s Image of the Day on December 21. It’s a bit grainy, but when you sharpen it, the details pop.
The astronaut clicked the pic while the ISS was flying over southern Iran, looking southwest over the Persian Gulf towards Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Summer days around the Persian Gulf can be brutal, with temperatures often hitting over 40 degrees Celsius and feeling even hotter.
What likely happened is that warm air rising over land created a sea breeze near Qatar, forming a line of cumulus clouds.
One of those clouds shot up high, hinting at a possible thunderstorm. These clouds can grow over 6,000 meters tall!
From the ground, that cloud probably looked massive, but from space, it’s just a little cotton ball. It’s even smaller compared to the whole atmosphere, which you can see as a blue haze at the top of the photo.
While our atmosphere stretches over 100 km high, most weather happens within 20 km of the surface. It takes a serious thunderstorm for clouds to reach those heights.
Pretty fascinating, right?
