 | | | | |
| | | | | |
|
About Observing the Earth How does Earth Observation work?How to get Earth observation dataIntegrating Earth Observation in your jobEarth Observation users speakEO programmes The Living PlanetGMESESA's Earth Observing missions Envisat overviewERS overviewEarth Explorers overviewSentinels overviewMSG overviewMetOp overviewProba-1 overviewThird Party Missions overview Opportunities with us Multimedia Services CalendarSubscribe
| | | | | | | Earth from Space: Arctic Bloom
19 September 2008
| This Envisat image, acquired on 12 August 2008 with the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument, captures a plankton bloom stretching across the Northeast Passage in the Barents Sea. Plankton, the most abundant type of life found in the ocean, are microscopic marine plants that drift on or near the surface of the sea. Microscopic plankton have been called 'the grass of the sea' because they are the basic food on which all other marine life depends. Although some types of plankton are individually microscopic, the chlorophyll they use for photosynthesis collectively tints the colour of the surrounding ocean waters, providing a means of detecting these tiny organisms from space with dedicated 'ocean colour' sensors, such as MERIS, onboard satellites.
Credits: ESA | |  |  | |
| |
| | Archive Image archive Earth images gallery Related missions Envisat overviewChoose a language  Article complet Article complet Article complet Article complet
|
HI-RES JPEG (Size: 
HI-RES TIFF (Size: