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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Linda Geddes Science correspondent

Mysterious glow of a ‘milky sea’ caught on camera for first time

captures a 100,000 sq km bioluminescent milky sea south of Java, Indonesia
Satellite imagery from the night of 2 August 2019 captures a 100,000 sq km bioluminescent milky sea south of Java, Indonesia. Coordinates of the private yacht Ganesha are overlaid; blue segment denotes where the crew reported sailing into glowing waters. Photograph: Steven Miller, Leon Schommer (photographer) and Naomi McKinnon, Australian National University, Canberra

Waking at 10pm, a sailor looked out from the deck of the superyacht Ganesha to see that the ocean had turned white. “There is no moon, the sea is apparently full of plankton, but the bow wave is black. It gives the impression of sailing on snow,” they wrote.

For centuries, mariners have described navigating unearthly night-time waters, lit up by a mysterious glow, but such “milky seas” have long eluded scientific inquiry owing to their remote, transient and infrequent nature.

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