Once in a while, it pays to look at images from satellites that point down instead of up 🙃
-
Once in a while, it pays to look at images from satellites that point down instead of up
So I thought I'd share this rather striking picture of a cyanobacteria algal bloom in the Baltic Sea, overlaid with some summer clouds.
It spans a 90 x 90km area east of Stockholm & was taken by the ESA-operated Sentinel-2A satellite at 10:10 UTC on 23 July 2019.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by Mark McCaughrean, CC BY-SA 4.0
-
Once in a while, it pays to look at images from satellites that point down instead of up
So I thought I'd share this rather striking picture of a cyanobacteria algal bloom in the Baltic Sea, overlaid with some summer clouds.
It spans a 90 x 90km area east of Stockholm & was taken by the ESA-operated Sentinel-2A satellite at 10:10 UTC on 23 July 2019.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by Mark McCaughrean, CC BY-SA 4.0
Cyanobacteria are not technically algae, as they're prokaryotes, meaning they don't have a nucleus, while true algae are eukaryotes and do.
They use light-absorbing pigments like chlorophyll to convert sunlight into energy, & that gives them their blue-green colour.
And while such blooms are natural, they can be heavily enhanced by fertilisers in agricultural run-off, so they're not necessarily a good sign.
Still, they do make for spectacular images from space.
-
Cyanobacteria are not technically algae, as they're prokaryotes, meaning they don't have a nucleus, while true algae are eukaryotes and do.
They use light-absorbing pigments like chlorophyll to convert sunlight into energy, & that gives them their blue-green colour.
And while such blooms are natural, they can be heavily enhanced by fertilisers in agricultural run-off, so they're not necessarily a good sign.
Still, they do make for spectacular images from space.
Indeed, there is a programme using Copernicus images to monitor the algal blooms in the Baltic Sea, aiming to provide warnings in case the blooms drift close to coasts where they can be harmful to human health.
-
R ActivityRelay shared this topic
