Ship tracks are clouds that form around the exhaust released by ships into the still ocean air. Water molecules collect around the tiny particles (aerosols) from exhaust to form a cloud seed. More and more water accumulates on the seed until a visible cloud is formed. In the case of ship tracks, the cloud seeds are stretched over a long narrow path where the wind has blown the ship's exhaust, so the resulting clouds resemble long strings over the ocean.
Read more about Ship Tracks: Ship Tracks Study, Findings, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words ship and/or tracks:
“I would rather not see such winds subside, which carry your slow ship away, although they leave me, cast down, on an empty shore, often, with clenched hand, calling you cruel.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)
“Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.”
—René Daumal (1908–1944)