Rayleigh–Taylor instability
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The Rayleigh–Taylor instability, or RT instability, is an instability of an interface between two fluids of different densities which occurs when the lighter fluid is pushing the heavier fluid. Exampl
RT instability fingers evident in the Crab Nebula
Mushroom cloud
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A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with
Rayleigh–Taylor instability
…which occurs when the lighter fluid is pushing the heavier fluid. Examples include the behavior of water suspended above oil in the gravity of Earth, mushroom clouds like those from volcanic eruptions and atmospheric nuclear explosions, supernova explosions in which expanding core gas is accelerated into denser shell…
Ascending cloud from Redoubt Volcano from an eruption on 21 April 1990. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano.
Mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945
Vue du siège de Gibraltar et explosion des batteries flottantes View of the Siege of Gibraltar and the Explosion of the Floating Batteries, artist unknown, c. 1782
Mushroom cloud in an engraving from Gerhard Vieth's Physikalischer Kinderfreund, 1798