Resembling the frosting shells that trim a fine cake, cloud vortices swirl behind Jan Mayen Island in the Greenland Sea. Vortices such as these form when air moving over the smooth ocean surface is forced over some obstacle, like an island. The disturbance creates eddies in the air, which have blown the clouds into the pattern seen here. At the center of each eddy is a dark, cloud-free circle, which gets progressively smaller as the turbulence in the air subsides. The satellite captured this image on May 16, 2005.