Source at the USRA’s Earth Science Picture of the Day
As shown above, the shoreline of the Persian Gulf is aglow in blue light caused by bioluminescence, while overhead the night sky is ablaze in starlight from the winter constellations of Orion and Canis Major. This photo was taken from the Hormozgan province in southeastern, Iran shortly after nightfall on December 19, 2018 – the camera is facing east. Bioluminescence results when swarms of dinoflagellates (marine plankton) are distressed by breaking waves, ship wakes or perhaps schools of fish. It’s believed that the electric blue light acts to lure prey but also may be a warning to would-be predators.
Note that the bright star at bottom center is Sirius; not only the brightest star in Canis Major but the brightest star in the entire night sky. The glow on the horizon is due to light pollution from city lights.
Photo Details: Camera: NIKON D750; Software: Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 (Windows); Exposure Time: 15.000s; Aperture: ƒ/2.8; ISO equivalent: 10000; Focal Length (35mm): 24; Lens: 24.0-85.0 mm f/2.8-4.0.
Hormozgan, Iran Coordinates: 27.1387, 55.1376 [note: these are wrong and very well inland]
Photographer: Mohammad Sadegh Hayati
Summary Authors: Mohammad Sadegh Hayati; Jim Foster
That said, OP, it just says it’s in Hormozgan, which stretches a lot of the Persian Gulf. The (at least somewhat wrong) coordinates we do have are well on the other side of Qeshm from the island Hormoz.
I was wondering if it’s bioluminescent flora or fauna…a pity the article doesn’t say.
Actually, there’s no pity; it does say! And the answer is neither. Dinoflagellates are unicellular, eukaryotic protists within the SAR supergroup.
Plankton includes organisms from species across all the major biological kingdoms, ranging in size from the microscopic (such as bacteria, archaea, protozoa and microscopic algae and fungi[4]) to larger organisms (such as jellyfish and ctenophores).[5] This is because plankton are defined by their ecological niche and level of motility rather than by any phylogenetic or taxonomic classification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
Both/and, neither/nor! Nature is mind-boggling!
Yes, dinoflagellates are just one type of plankton, and “plankton” isn’t a taxonomic term at all. (There are slightly more specific terms, like “zooplankton” which indicates the animal kingdom, but the actual word “plankton” is based on locomotion.)
Edit: I forgot to mention, because this might traumatize someone into realizing they have no idea what the character Plankton from SpongeBob is: Plankton, the character, is a copepod with a single (“naupliar”, in the terminology of crustaceans) eye. That could be a bunch of different copepods; it’s hard to say.
Where can I learn more?!
For starters, I’ve been writing about marine crustaceans on and off for some years, and for raw taxonomical information, the best resource to me, bar none, is the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). This is going to use official taxonomical names and classifications, so that’s best-reserved as a place to learn where an organism is within the tree of life as we understand it today, but the nitty-gritty specifics of where the organism falls might not make sense to you if you’re not familiar with that specific area. I don’t really recommend going into it hoping to learn general facts about marine biology en masse, and most of that information will be on places like Wikipedia anyway (WoRMS is just sometimes more up-to-date). Wikipedia will tend to be more user-friendly with broader information; the infobox at the top of each taxonomic article gives a placement within the tree of life.
At the bottom of that plankton article (desktop version) is what’s called a navbox that has relevant links to articles about different types of plankton.
If you want to check out cool pictures of specific groups, I recommend iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons (iNaturalist especially, as much of Commons’ content is from there and it’s generally well-reviewed for accuracy).
Those are three general resources, but it’s hard to point in a specific direction without a more specific goal.
I think I meant to save a comment from you before and forgot, then couldn’t find it. What a serendipitous twist life takes, sometimes! Thank you! 😊
15 second shutter. Dayum.
Now I understand why everyone is fighting over this.
The stage is lit beautifully. Trump faces the audience and says: “With this, I hope we clearly illustrated the need for a transition to renewable energy.” The curtain falls, the audience is ecstatic. Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mojtaba Khamenei all come out and bow to the cheers of the audience.
Anywhere is beautiful with these photo effects. It’s like the photography equivalent of make-up.
This looks like the so-called “Blue Tears” phenomenon caused by bioluminescent algae reacting in the sea.
No, pretty sure this was after Iran sunk a cargo vessel carrying paint for the Blue Man Group
