NASA Now Has New Way To Map Ocean Plant Health

If I say the word, phytoplankton, you probably either A.) research on Wikipedia about what phytoplankton is, or B.) Don’t care what phytoplankton is and go about your day. If your someone who studies the ocean, then you know just how vital the health of phytoplankton is. You also know that it’s important that we research, and catalog its health.

The reason that phytoplankton is so important, is that’s easily the most important resource found in the ocean. Besides water of course (don’t get sassy). A large portion of the ocean’s wildlife depends on the health, and abundance of phytoplankton for food. Now, NASA has developed a new method to better monitor the health of phytoplankton in the ocean.

Before this method, chlorophyll was used as a means to track phytoplankton in the ocean. This worked as a means to show ‘how much’ phytoplankton there was, but didn’t do a great job of showing how healthy it was. Either the phytoplankton was there, or it wasn’t. Now, NASA scientists have discovered that phytoplankton emits red fluorescent light. It’s able to shine this light because during photosynthesis, there’s excess light that is emitted through heat, and also the red lighting.

NASA’s new satellite can detect this glow, and with it has a much more efficient tool for tracking phytoplankton health. If you look at one of the new charts, you can see where areas have abundant phytoplankton life and where its presence is waning. Being able to detect trends in phytoplankton life will greatly help researchers detect problems and devise solutions.

[via: NASA]