Home > Terms > English (EN) > contrails

contrails

The white streaks you see coming off high-flying jet airplanes are called contrails, which is short for condensation trail. Contrails are clouds that formed when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles that exist in aircraft exhaust. The water vapor comes from the air around the plane and the exhaust of the aircraft.

Some contrails evaporate quickly while others stay in the sky for a long time after the airplane is gone. These contrails can become human-made cirrus clouds. Contrails last longer when there is a greater amount of water in the air; they last until the water in the clouds evaporates.

There are three types of contrails: short-lived, persistent non-spreading, and persistent spreading.

0
Collect to Blossary

Member comments

You have to log in to post to discussions.

Terms in the News

Billy Morgan

Sports; Snowboarding

The British snowboarder Billy Morgan has landed the sport’s first ever 1800 quadruple cork. The rider, who represented Great Britain in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, was in Livigno, Italy, when he achieved the man-oeuvre. It involves flipping four times, while body also spins with five complete rotations on a sideways or downward-facing axis. The trick ...

Marzieh Afkham

Broadcasting & receiving; News

Marzieh Afkham, who is the country’s first foreign ministry spokeswoman, will head a mission in east Asia, the state news agency reported. It is not clear to which country she will be posted as her appointment has yet to be announced officially. Afkham will only be the second female ambassador Iran has had. Under the last shah’s rule, Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, a ...

Weekly Packet

Language; Online services; Slang; Internet

Weekly Packet or "Paquete Semanal" as it is known in Cuba is a term used by Cubans to describe the information that is gathered from the internet outside of Cuba and saved onto hard drives to be transported into Cuba itself. Weekly Packets are then sold to Cuban's without internet access, allowing them to obtain information just days - and sometimes hours - after it ...

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

Banking; Investment banking

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is an international financial institution established to address the need in Asia for infrastructure development. According to the Asian Development Bank, Asia needs $800 billion each year for roads, ports, power plants or other infrastructure projects before 2020. Originally proposed by China in 2013, a signing ...

Spartan

Online services; Internet

Spartan is the codename given to the new Microsoft Windows 10 browser that will replace Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer. The new browser will be built from the ground up and disregard any code from the IE platform. It has a new rendering engine that is built to be compatible with how the web is written today. The name Spartan is named after the ...

Featured Terms

Silentchapel
  • 0

    Terms

  • 95

    Blossaries

  • 10

    Followers

Industry/Domain: Literature Category: Novels

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her ...

Featured blossaries

Archaeology

Category: History   3 1 Terms

Starbucks Teas Beverages

Category: Food   2 29 Terms

Browers Terms By Category