Satellite Sees Global View of Sandy's Life to Landfall

An animation of satellite observations from Oct. 21-30, 2012, shows the birth of Tropical Storm Sandy in the Caribbean Sea, the intensification and movement of Sandy in the Atlantic Ocean along the U.S. East Coast, and the landfall of Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey on Oct. 29. This visualization was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., using observations from NOAA's GOES-13 and GOES-15 satellites.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[David Richards]

I was watching this wondering what was causing that large band of cloud that kept rotating around the planet, is it some sort of gravitational effect caused by the moon, like a cloud based tide? Or maybe even the sun? Anyone know the answer please I would like to know.

[jasleil]

Wow......

I am speechless.

[REALCYBERSPACE]

I got this weather update from my server on the twenty first and the storm hit on the twentyninth

[ssp210503]

wooooooooooo

[ssp210503]

slow mo

[arrowmint12]

Bermuda triangle..lol

[TheStrayEagle]

But it's got to be the sun rise and set as the angles of the solar terminator as they move across the earth alternate from "up" to "down" as the earth spins and the "ring" of light that is cast from the sun onto the earth is static and inclined 23.4 degrees. As you see the earth from this perspective, you will see the angle change from this geostationary view because one side of the "ring" goes from bottom left to top right, and the other from top left to bottom right to join the ring.

[Erling Andreassen]

Jeeez, imagine being that far from Earth! I truly envy the people of the future who will be able to go maybe as tourists that far out and beyond!

[AntiMusick]

since you are seeing 9 days in 20 seconds what that is is the night and day cycles that are flashing by.

[David Richards]

It says 21st-29th Oct. So, at most 8 days, and at least 7 point something days.

I count 18-19 passes (it jumps), assuming it's a ring, that 9 rotations.

9/8= 1.125.

This might sound silly but is the time it takes for the earth to rotate once 24 hours? Would it not be slightly more or less than that? DGMW I'm not saying a day isn't 24 hours, but that's relative to the sun. what about relative to the universe? This is why I asked is anyone knew. This is all just guesswork.

[air1505]

It's Panama's fault.

[TadaGanIarracht]

I don't actually know but it's timing is so regular that it has to be the day night cycle. One way to find out would be to find out how many days it took to get from birth to landfall and then divide that by the number of "sweeps" you see.. if the number = 1 then there's a good chance that it is caused by the day night cycle, if not, then I don't know just think about it logically!