Satellite imagery of the Indian Ocean off Somalia from the nights of Jan. 25, 26, and 27, 1995 (unfiltered at top, filtered in middle) show a patch of ocean where bioluminescent marine bacteria aggregated to illuminate a patch of ocean 5,946 square miles—a bit larger than the state of Connecticut. Crew aboard a ship passing through the area at the time, the SS Lima reported the "milky sea" phenomenon. At bottom, the satellite-detected patch of bioluminescent bacteria off the coast of Somalia, is superimposed on a composite of two different Earth atlases (day and night) with actual
cloud data. The
satellite data of the "milky sea" have been colorized to approximate the natural bacterial
emission spectrum, since the low-light satellite sensor only perceives light as
gray scale.
(Steven D. Miller, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Steven H. D. Haddock, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; Christopher D. Elvidge, National Geophysical Data Center; and Thomas F. Lee, NRL.)[back]
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