Earth From Space: Plankton Bloom

This Envisat image captures a plankton bloom in the Barents Sea. Credit: ESA

[/caption]
What a gorgeous shot of our blue planet! This Envisat satellite image taken on August 19, 2009 captures a plankton bloom larger than the country of Greece stretching across the Barents Sea off the tip of northern Europe. The land visible across the bottom of the image belongs to Norway (left) and Russia’s Murmansk Oblast.

Plankton, the most abundant type of life found in the ocean, are microscopic marine plants that drift on or near the surface of the sea. Microscopic plankton have been called ‘the grass of the sea’ because they are the basic food on which all other marine life depends.

The colorful blossoming bloom in the Barents Sea, a rather deep shelf sea with an average depth around 230 m, is approximately 136,000 sq km. In comparison, Greece has a land area of 131,940 sq km.

For more about this image, see this page from ESA.

Remove All Ads on Universe Today

Join our Patreon for as little as $3!

Get the ad-free experience for life

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/