Member-only story
What Are All of Those Circles You See Out Of Your Airplane Window?
A common sight that seems unnatural
If you’ve ever glanced out the window during a long flight and looked down at the ground below, you might have seen an unusual sight. The ground seems to be filled with tiny green circles. In some places, these circles are ubiquitous, seeming to cover the Earth like some sort of strange pox. In other places, the circles are notable because they appear seemingly in the middle of a desert or arid plain. If you look even closer, you will notice that some of these circles are cut in half, and others are three-quarters full. What the heck are these? To the untrained eye, they look unnatural. And in a way, they are.
What you are seeing is the backbone of modern agriculture. These circles are the result of a system known as center-pivot irrigation. Center-pivot irrigation is a system where a long irrigation arm slowly moves in a circle from a central point and provides much needed water to crops. They create these green circles because only the areas under the irrigation arm receive water and, therefore, become much lusher and healthier than the surrounding land.
