The same term is applied to automatic weather data transmitters installed on buoys, balloons, ships, and planes, and mounted in remote areas. An orbit with an orbital inclination of near 90 degrees where the satellite ground track will cross both polar regions once during each orbit. The comparatively slow torquing of the orbital planes of all satellites with respect to the Earth's axis, due to the bulge of the Earth at the equator which distorts the Earth's gravitational field. Although clouds appear to float in the sky, they are always falling, their water droplets slowly being pulled down by gravity. Because their water droplets are so small and light, it can take 21 days to fall 1,000 feet and wind currents can easily interrupt their descent.
Liquid water falls as rain or drizzle.
All raindrops form around particles of salt or dust. Water or ice droplets stick to these particles, then the drops attract more water and continue getting bigger until they are large enough to fall out of the cloud. Drizzle drops are smaller than raindrops. In many clouds, raindrops actually begin as tiny ice crystals that form when part or all of a cloud is below freezing. As the ice crystals fall inside the cloud, they may collide with water droplets that freeze onto them.