A Connecticut-Sized Glow Beneath the Indian Ocean
Satellite images capture a massive, distinct glow beneath the ocean's surface. What on Earth could it be?
PRESENTER #1: It's like hundreds of thousands of light bulbs underneath the sea.
PRESENTER #2: From the science point of view, the leading hypothesis is that these are bioluminescence gone wild.
PRESENTER #3: Bioluminescence is the creation of light by biology.
...
Dinoflagellates are a type of marine plankton that do make bioluminescence, and sometimes you see it in the rudder of a ship or in a wave or if you move your hand through the water even.
PRESENTER #1: Some people might think that this is dinoflagellates, but for them to light up, they have to be shaken up or agitated in some way. It's just a giant blanket of the ocean that's lighting up all the time for days at a time. It's almost impossible to imagine something the size that could have disturbed this area to help emit this glow. I mean, we are talking something the size of a state.
PRESENTER #2: We did take some measurements in a laboratory environment of luminous bacteria and they emit a very faint amount of light. We're talking about a hundred times less, a thousand times less than moonlight.
PRESENTER #1: This phenomenon could very well be something that is brand-new to science.
