Word: clouding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nearly as big as the U.S., this plateau is literally out of the world-on Venus. Though the perpetual cloud cover of the earth's nearest planetary neighbor has kept its surface tantalizingly hidden, Venus' veil is being lifted by a gifted robot. The Pioneer-Venus Or biter spacecraft has been circling the planet since December 1978, analyzing its atmosphere and scanning and rescanning its surface with radar. Last week NASA released the first renderings of these extraterrestial data, revealing a dramatic and awesome landscape still in the process of formation. Though 60% of the Venusian topography consists...
Harberger's original vow in February that "if I come to Harvard it will be having surmounted these obstacles and not under a cloud," apparently proved prophetic...
Volcanic dust in the upper atmosphere reflects sunlight away from the earth and lowers temperatures. The cloud released by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia was so dense that it made 1816 in much of the U.S. "the year without a summer." Nothing comparable is likely to happen because of Mount St. Helens. Meteorologists estimate that its cloud of ash will reduce world temperatures by only a tiny fraction of a degree Fahrenheit-a deviation that will be too slight for people to notice...
There was a fearful black cloud riven by darting tongues of flame, which then dissolved into long plumes of fire. We could hear the shrieks of women, the screams of children. Most were convinced that this must be the end of the world." So wrote Pliny the Younger of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the most famous volcanic explosion in history. The blast buried the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii under mud and hot ash and killed at least 2,000. In more modern times there have been several catastrophic eruptions of volcanoes. Among them...
...Mount Pelee, a long-dormant volcano on the island of Martinique, exploded, sending a huge cloud of dust, steam and gas, believed to be as hot as 1,800° F over the town of Saint-Pierre. Within minutes the town was a smoldering ruin, and 29,933 inhabitants were dead. Only four residents are known to have survived, including a convicted murderer who was imprisoned in a dungeon cell...