Environment

Pollution from Ships Creates Massive Clouds Visible from Space

NASA's Aqua satellite was orbiting over Portugal back in January when it snapped the above photo. It shows a thin film of clouds above the brilliant blue of the North Atlantic, slashed with white lines of thicker clouds that look like scars or etchings.

Those thicker clouds, NASA officials explained in , are signs of ship traffic below. When ships power their way through the ocean, they pump exhaust into the atmosphere, just as cars do. And those massive plumes of particles can "seed" clouds, causing new cloud droplets to form.