Strange Double
Helix Cloud
Spotted in
Russia
Photograph by Mutant @ netall.ru
On December 24, 2012, a strange
double helix cloud was spotted just
outside Moscow, Russia. A series of
amateur photographs were
submitted to a Russian site called
netall.ru (scroll down to Dec. 24) on
the morning of the occurrence.
While it is not entirely known what
caused such a phenomenon, there
is a fairly extensive investigation
under way on the website
metabunk.org which believes it to be
some kind of contrail.
Photograph by donskoi92 @ netall.ru
Contrails or vapour trails
are long thin artificial
clouds that sometimes
form behind aircraft. Their
formation is most often
triggered by the water
vapour in the exhaust of
aircraft engines, but can
also be triggered by the
changes in air pressure in
wingtip vortices or in the
air over the entire wing
surface. Like all clouds,
contrails are made of
water, in the form of a
suspension of billions of
liquid droplets or ice
crystals. Depending on the
temperature and humidity
at the altitude the contrail
forms, they may be visible
for only a few seconds or
minutes, or may persist for
hours and spread to be
several miles wide.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Photograph by donskoi92 @ netall.ru
The images were
submitted the following
day to Reddit by
aphexsm , who believes it
has something to do with a
local liquid propellant
rocket engine manufacturer
called NPO Energomash
which is a design bureau
based in Khimki, a city
just northwest of Moscow.
Photograph by Natalya @ netall.ru
The strange cloud has
drawn many comparisons
to the double helix
structure of DNA, one of
the three major
macromolecules that are
essential for all known
forms of life (along with
RNA and proteins).
Sources
- netall.ru Photo of the Day for
December 24, 2012
- metabunk.org: Moscow Spiral
Contrail / Helix Cloud – Theories
- aphexsm on Reddit
- Wikipedia: Contrail
- Wikipedia: NPO Energomash
- Wikipedia: DNA
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