Private Yacht Ganesha Captures First Pictures Of Mysterious 'Milky Seas'
Milky seas are one of the rarest and most mysterious phenomena in the ocean. A private yacht named Ganesha has captured the first pictures of mysterious milky seas.
Have you ever heard of 'Milky Seas'? These are one of the rarest and most mysterious phenomena in the ocean. These elusive happenings have been previously demonstrated using satellites. However, milky seas had not been caught on camera until now.
A private yacht named Ganesha has captured the first pictures of mysterious milky seas. Steven Miller, a professor at Colorado State University, has compared satellite observations of a 2019 milky sea event off the coast of Java, to photographic evidence from Ganesha, a 16-metre sailing ship in a new study. The paper was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
What Are Milky Seas?
Milky seas are a rare phenomena of glowing areas on the ocean's surface that can cover thousands of square miles. These unusual events have been noticed by mariners for centuries. Milky seas can be spotted when the surface of the ocean, often from horizon to horizon, glows with a continuous uniform milky light.
The most plausible explanation for the origin of milky seas are blooms of bioluminescent bacteria. Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism.
Dinoflagellates cause red tides, flashing waves, and sparkling water behind boats. They are protists (a eukaryotic organism that is not a plant, animal, or fungus) which need to be stimulated to produce their brief bright flashes. However, these flashes of light do not match the kind of display seen in milky seas.
Meanwhile, bacteria will glow with a continuous light, under the right conditions. The light from a milky sea is sometimes described as white, according to the Marine Bioluminescence Web Page. But the light from milky seas is actually blue. Milky seas may appear white when detected by humans at night because rod photoreceptors do not distinguish colours.
Milky Seas Caught On Camera For The First Time
On August 2, 2019, a 100,000-square-kilometre bioluminescent milky sea south of Java was seen from space. The private yacht Ganesha captured the first photograph of the milky sea at night. The nighttime picture is the first of its kind.
In the image, the ship's deck appears as a dark silhouette against the glowing waters. The yacht's crew, who were sailing in the milky seas, were unsure of what they had encountered. Therefore, they provided their footage to Colorado State University after learning of Miller's interest in capturing milky seas from space.
According to a statement released by Colorado State University, Miller had previously tried to understand how the rarely-encountered mysterious milky seas work by comparing satellite observations to tales from maritime lore.
Can Milky Seas Be Seen Up Close?
The crew of the Ganesha described the sea as a "luminous snowfield", according to the statement. A crew member said that both the colour and intensity of the glow were similar to glow-in-the-dark stars and stickers, or some watches that have glowing parts on the hands. The milky seas had a very soft glow that was gentle on the eyes.
The glow of the ocean, spreading from horizon to horizon, shining through the rails of the boat, can be seen in GoPro and smartphone photographs. A picture clicked using a Samsung Galaxy S9+ was colour-adjusted to approximate the visual perception of the glow.
The glow appeared to be emanating from a fair depth below the ocean's surface, according to the captain of the Ganesha. The crew had obtained a bucket of water from the glowing sea, and observed that it contained many pinpoints of steady light. These were seen instead of the flashing or sparkling light observed by more commonly experienced forms of marine bioluminescence.
Miller wrote in the paper that the steady from the glowing sea sheds some light onto the hypotheses of milky seas.
Some people believe that a "surface slick" of bioluminescence leads to milky sea formation. However, the observations from the Ganesha suggest that the milky sea phenomenon happens over a much deeper volume.
How Milky Seas Appear From Space
Miller matched satellite images from the Day-Night Band (DNB) sensor aboard National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) SNPP and NOAA-20 satellites with the photographs captured by the Ganesha crew. He also used GPS-reported track logs to pinpoint the location of the milky seas.
Miller found that the Ganesha's track intercepted the southern part of the glowing seas. The Ganesha was far from the brightest region of the milky sea. However, the Ganesha was still sailing through a region of ocean whose glow was readily detectable from 500 miles above in space, the statement said.
Scientists can better understand what they are seeing from space by knowing how the ocean appears from the surface.
Did The Study Find The 'Biggest Missing Link'?
Miller said that opportunities to study unresolved scientific mysteries are exceedingly rare in modern science. This is what makes never-before-seen observations so compelling. Scientists often do not obtain data to understand what a satellite sees, and what is actually happening on the ground.
Miller explained that the "biggest missing link" in a study from last year was the lack of ground truth. The study was about Day-Night Band-based milky sea detection and highlighted the 2019 Java event.
Miller said that the current study provides the biggest missing link, and that it was a "great relief" to get this contact from the Ganesha crew.
Miller added that he hopes more in-person witnesses will come forward so that the scientific community can connect more pieces in the puzzle of scientific exploration.
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