A thin, white trail of vapor left behind by an aircraft engine at high altitude, created when hot exhaust condenses in cold air.
Contraction of 'condensation trail' created in the 1940s-1950s during the jet age. American aviation terminology that compressed two words into one scientific shorthand.
Contrails became a symbol of the jet age, and their patterns actually tell meteorologists something real about atmospheric moisture—but conspiracy theorists wrongly turned them into a mystery.
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