What do clouds look like from above?

Think of a cloudy day outside. Soft gray puffs float high over your head. When one slides over the sun, you can feel the air on your cheeks turn a little cooler.

From the ground, we see the bottoms of the clouds. But what about their other side? What do clouds look like from above?

A pilot steers a big airplane up into the clouds. Outside the window, everything turns white and misty. That is because a cloud is made of tiny drops of water, floating together.

Then the pilot flies the plane out of the top. Look out the window, and the clouds are below you! Their tops shine bright white, because the sunshine lands right on them.

The cloud tops look like a big, bumpy floor. Some puff up like cotton. Others pile up like snowy hills, because the clouds keep puffing upward as they grow.

Above that cloud floor, the sky is clear and blue. Nothing hides the sun up there, because the clouds are all down below.

Far higher than any airplane, astronauts live on the space station, which means a home that floats high in space. From its big window, the astronauts look down at the clouds.

From the space station, our Earth looks huge and curved. Blue sea and green land spread out far below. White clouds lie all over them. What shapes do you think those clouds make?

Many of those clouds make white swirls, which means curly shapes that wind round and round. The wind blows the clouds along in big curves. That curls them into swirls.

Some swirls are giant, bigger than a whole country. They look like milk stirred in a cup. The astronauts on the space station watch them spin slowly below.

From above, clouds make a bright white floor, because sunshine lands right on them. From the space station, astronauts see the wind curl clouds into giant swirls.

Far below, an airplane glides over the shining cloud floor. Higher still, the space station drifts along. Beneath it, the white swirls turn over the blue sea.