Where is it? The Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea.
What’s in the photo? A swirling mass of algae trapped in an ocean vortex.
Which satellite took the photo? Landsat 8.
When was it taken? July 18, 2018.
This striking green spiral emerged in the Baltic Sea during a massive algal bloom in 2018. While the swirling microbes have an ethereal beauty in the image, this belies an unseen danger they brought with them as they created a massive, toxic “dead zone.”
The large spiral, which was around 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) across at its widest point, appeared in the Gulf of Finland — an arm of the Baltic Sea sandwiched between Finland, Estonia and Russia, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. The swirl mainly consisted of tiny photosynthetic marine bacteria, known as cyanobacteria, as well as some glass-armored plankton, known as diatoms.
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