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Monday, November 23, 2009

Week in Photos: Baby Anteater Born, Shuttle Lifts Off, More

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Barents Sea, August 1, 2007—An unusual algal bloom is giving the Arctic a little sparkle.

A giant bloom of coccolithophores—tiny, surface-dwelling ocean plants—is seen here coating an area of about 150,000 square kilometers (57,000 square miles), an area roughly the size of Wisconsin, in a NASA satellite image releases August 3, 2007.

Coccolithophores flourish in nutrient-poor, sub-polar waters like the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia. Because they are coated with tiny limestone scales, they reflect back nearly all the light that hit them, giving the water a distinctive blue tint.

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—Image courtesy Norman Kuring, Ocean Color Group, Goddard Space Flight Center