What is a cloud made of?

Look up at the sky on a sunny day. White, fluffy clouds drift by like big puffs of whipped cream. Have you ever wished you could reach up and touch one?

Clouds look soft and puffy, but what are they, really? What is a cloud made of? Let's find out together.

Inside a cloud, the air feels cool and wet. It is just like fog on a misty morning. That wet feeling tells us something about clouds.

A cloud is made of water! The water floats in droplets, which means very little drops of water. A cloud is full of them.

How little is a droplet? It is smaller than the tiniest speck of dust you can see. Even your sharpest eyes could never spot just one.

Pour water from a cup, and splash, down it falls. Yet cloud droplets stay up high and float in the sky. Why do you think they don't fall down?

A droplet is so light, it weighs almost nothing. Moving air gives the droplets a gentle push up, and that push is stronger than their tiny pull down. That is why they float, like dust dancing in a sunbeam.

Now picture droplets packed close together. A cloud holds more of them than grains of sand in a sandbox. All together, they make a big shape we can see from far away.

Each droplet is clear, like a raindrop on a window. Sunshine hits all those droplets and bounces around between them. That bouncing light makes the cloud look bright and white.

Let's remember our word: droplets. A cloud is lots of tiny water droplets that the air holds up.

Next time a cloud drifts over you, you can wave hello to all its little floating droplets, and smile.