Meet New Zealand’s Beloved Pet Cloud

casualSTEM delivers brief and informative summaries of the latest science news every Saturday. Full of jokes, silly polls, and a cartoon!

Fluffy Friend

New Zealand’s pet cloud keeps coming back. They’ve nicknamed the UFO-looking lenticular cloud “Taieri Pet”.

• Named after the region it visits, Strath-Taieri

• Lenticular clouds form when wind moves over obstacles

• Creating standing waves that condense moisture

Locals have cared for Taieri Pet since at least the 1890s, while NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite started monitoring it (and the rest of the planet) over 50 years ago. I don’t have any lasting implications to add, just thought we could all use a pet cloud right now. 🌞 

Check out this 7-mile cloud-pet from September

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