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arXiv · 2603.29883

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Wolf Cukier·Dominic Samra·Vighnesh Nagpal·Diana Powell·Maria Steinrueck·Christopher Wirth
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Abstract

Speculative fiction has long served an inspiration for genuine scientific inquiry. One notable work that has almost acted in this manner is the the seminal comedic speculative fiction work Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. While exoplaneteers reference this work frequently, we have never engaged with the central prediction of this work... until now! We perform detailed microphysical modeling of meatball clouds, both bare and coated with marinara sauce, and find that while meatball condensation is possible in temperate atmospheres, the meatballs do not quite grow to the sizes predicted by Cloudy. We do find, however, that such meatball condensation, across a large enough planet, would be able to sustain humanity calorically.

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Wolf Cukier, Dominic Samra, Vighnesh Nagpal, Diana Powell, Maria Steinrueck, Christopher Wirth. 2026-03-31. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.29883

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