• MODIS Pic of the Day 17 June 2022

    From Dan Richter@1:317/3 to All on Friday, June 17, 2022 12:00:34
    June 17, 2022 - Bloomin' Black Sea

    Black Sea
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    Aquatic artists painted glorious jewel-toned colors in the normally
    dark waters of the Black Sea in mid-June 2022. The Moderate Resolution
    Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite
    acquired a true-color image of the astounding scene on June 16. This
    image captures swirls ranging from deep olive, to turquoise, to
    milky-blue in the western end of the Black Sea, off the coasts of
    Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

    The tiny artists didn’t create the multi-hued masterpiece with brushes
    and paint, they created it from the pigments found within their own
    cellular structure. Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that
    contain chlorophyll and other pigments. Some, such as coccolithophores,
    lend a milky tone to the colorful scene because they contain chalk-like
    calcium carbonate plates in their structure. These tiny organisms live
    in these waters year-round, but when conditions are perfect—proper
    temperature, sufficient nutrients, and enough sunlight—they can
    reproduce explosively, creating gigantic blooms that can be easily seen
    from space. With more than 150 species of phytoplankton identified from
    the waters of the Black Sea, when multiple species bloom at the same
    time, the result is often a stunning, multi-toned palette.

    Large blooms of phytoplankton can be beneficial, because they form the
    base of the marine food web and provide nourishment for fish and other
    organisms, and because they can sequester carbon, keeping it out of the
    atmosphere. However, phytoplankton may also be harmful, especially when
    large blooms die rapidly. Decaying plants reduce oxygen out of water,
    creating conditions that are so oxygen-poor that they are called “dead
    zones”, because little life can survive under such conditions.

    Image Facts
    Satellite: Terra
    Date Acquired: 6/16/2022
    Resolutions: 1km (248.2 KB), 500m (691.8 KB), 250m (1.9 MB)
    Bands Used: 1,4,3
    Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



    https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-06-17

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