If you can get your eyes just right, you can see the 3D-ness. It's like those Magic Eye things. I can only do it for a few seconds. Awesome looking though!

More pictures from Boston dot com

I always have a pair of 3D glasses at my computer. That is cool!

The hole in the white cloud cover is probably the evaporation of the moisture droplets into the heated air column, which can hold more moisture, rising with the visible ash column.

The cap on the ash column is not "white steam" as steam is not visible. It may actually be a condensate cloud forming over the ash as it cools in the higher cold air above the cloud cover. The air over the column may be near the temperature of the air at the cloud cover level below, condensing out moisture from the ash and the surrounding air.

Steam is not visible?

We can see the steam clouds from Limerick from here...

http://s3.images.com/huge.69.347164.JPG

I knew there was a simple explanation to this image.

Hello Noreaster and :welcome: to the cellar.

And Noreaster is right. Technically steam is indeed invisible - what you can see there is tiny condensed particles.

Steam is not visible...when it cools below boiling, it leaves the vapor state and becomes visible as condensate in the air.

Really.

Yes, that's what's coming out of those cooling towers at Limerick, condensed water vapor, not steam.

At least, that's what they tell us it is! :tinfoil:

Hang on - Limerick, Eire?

No... Limerick, Pennsylvania, USA. :f207:

It's a clone, I tells ya, a mutant clone!!! Wake up, people!!!!!!!!!!