Filmmakers love New Zealand. Its landscapes evoke different worlds, which explains why a lot of The Lord of the Rings was filmed there. The nation has every thing from lengthy, subtropical sandy seashores to lively volcanoes.

The nation’s otherworldliness extends into its environment, the place a cloud nicknamed the “Taieri Pet” kinds when circumstances are proper.

The Taieri Pet is a lenticular cloud, a stationary sort of cloud that kinds in sure circumstances. They kind within the troposphere when the wind blows over an impediment, sometimes a mountain vary. There are three varieties: altocumulus standing lenticular (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL). Every sort kinds at a unique altitude.

When the wind is compelled to maneuver up and over an impediment, it creates a lower-pressure zone on the leeward aspect. Because the wind strikes, it creates standing waves. If circumstances are proper, these waves grow to be seen when the moisture condenses.

The Taieri Pet kinds over New Zealand’s Rock and Pillar Vary within the Strath-Taieri area of Otago on New Zealand’s South Island.

The cloud is a standard characteristic close to the city of Middlemarch. It’s talked about in newspapers way back to the Nineties. Locals generally took Taieri Pet’s look as a sign {that a} storm was coming.

The Operational Land Picture (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this gorgeous picture of the Taieri Pet in September. Landsat 8 follows a polar orbit that permits it to look at all the floor of the Earth each 16 days.

The Landsat satellites have been monitoring Earth for over 50 years from their orbit 705 km above us. The photographs and information are broadly utilized by scientists, however they’re additionally stunning portraits of our extraordinary, once-in-a-solar-system planet.

Anyone can benefit from the Landsat galleries, discovered right here.