Eerie Bioluminescence That Creates 'Milky Sea' Revealed in New Satellite Study

[Judi Lynn]

MICHELLE STARR30 JULY 2021

The ocean is vast, and deep, and dark, and inhospitable to us feeble land-dwelling creatures. There's much that remains unknown or poorly understood in its roiling, seething belly.

Technology is changing that.

For over a century, mariners have reported an eerily beautiful phenomenon they called the "milky sea" - enormous patches of glowing water that sometimes persist for several nights in a row. It wasn't until 2005 that this phenomenon was finally confirmed - in the form of photographs taken from a satellite in low-Earth orbit.

Now scientists have used nearly a decade's worth of satellite data to reveal the phenomenon in detail. Although much remains to be discovered, we've made some important steps towards understanding the largest known form of bioluminescence on Earth.

In his 1872 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Jules Verne wrote "It is called a milk sea .. a large extent of white wavelets often to be seen on the coasts of Amboyna .. the whiteness which surprises you is caused only by the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm".

The worm was conjecture on Verne's part, but milky seas are otherwise real. Patches of this phenomenon can be larger than 100,000 square kilometers (around 39,000 square miles), and have been reported a great deal in the last century or so: 235 sightings were cataloged between 1915 and 1993, which suggests an occurrence rate of at least thrice per year.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-milky-sea-bioluminescence-studied-from-space

[Pinback]

1. Fantastic.

Just last night I watched a 2016 Nova episode about bioluminescence and biofluorescence. Fascinating area of study with surprising connections to other disciplines such as brain research.

The Day/Night Band appears to be a related phenomenon. What a planet!