Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 5 Feb 2018 at 16:57:17 (UTC)
Reason
High-resolution picture of a nearly perfect annular typhoon at its peak intensity. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured Typhoon Noru with a pefect angle, presenting an exquisite tropical cyclone. In the picture, the eye is so symmetric and deep; the convective ring looks so compact and smooth, but it does not attach to the monsoon trough. Moreover, the eye and the convective ring are in the golden ratio. When I initially saw the image last July, I was truly touched beyond words. I have checked many beautiful tropical cyclones in Wikipedia, yet none of them is really comparable. Aside from the extremely rare appearance, Noru was the second strongest typhoon of 2017 and the second longest lasting Northwest Pacific tropical storm in history, which ultimately struck Japan.
@Geni: As the picture was captured near noon and in summer, sunlight over the area was too bright that even caused significant overexposure. The typhoon itself also enhanced the effect of overexposure as its cloud top was too smooth to have obvious shadows. The original picture looked completely white without optimization. A Himawari-8 animation on that day also revealed how the satellite solved overexposure. 🐱💬02:06, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]