00:00Look, the sea is glowing from within. It's stunning, yet eerie at the same time.
00:07White glow covering a huge area of the sea surface is not what you expect to see on a dark night.
00:14You look at one of the scariest and mysterious phenomena in the ocean.
00:19Let's study it.
00:20On January 30th, 1864, the Confederate ship, CSS Alabama, was sailing southwest along the Horn of Africa when the crew members noticed a mysterious white glowing sea.
00:35Captain Raphael Semes described it as a sickly and unearthly glare of a phantom sea.
00:42Although Semes was a stern and fearless sailor, he was scared by this bright water in the middle of the dark sea.
00:50At first, the crew thought they had been sailing over some kind of flooded ridge.
00:55They threw a weighted line, which immediately sank to the seabed, several hundred feet down.
01:01Obviously, the mysterious glow was not a ridge.
01:04For several hours, the ship sailed through this eerie glowing sea, and then, suddenly, this bright region ended.
01:12The Alabama entered the usual dark waters.
01:15Captain Raphael Semes' description was one of the very first documented accounts of a mysterious and elusive phenomenon called the Milky Sea.
01:26In 1851, in the famous book Moby Dick, this phenomenon was described as a sailor's quiet, superstitious fear at the entrance to the midnight sea of milky whiteness.
01:38Jules Verne, in his novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, described this phenomenon more scientifically.
01:45One of the characters of his book said that the whiteness was caused by the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm, gelatinous and colorless.
01:57For centuries, people have reported mysterious glowing water at night, and only recently have scientists got closer to solving this mystery.
02:05But first, let's be clear.
02:08What Captain Raphael Semes saw was slightly different from that violet-blue glow called bioluminescence.
02:16Aristotle wrote about luminous algae and phytoplankton in the 3rd century BCE.
02:22He noticed that sometimes, the water produced bright blue flashes when he hit the surface of the sea with a baton.
02:29In 1492, Christopher Columbus observed unusual flickering of light in the ocean caused by bioluminescent marine worms.
02:39As it turned out later, those worms rose to the surface to perform a circular mating dance.
02:46In the late 1800s, scientists discovered that bioluminescence is the result of an oxidative reaction inside certain animal and plant cells.
02:56You might have seen it at night while walking along the shore.
02:59If not, you can watch a video with bioluminescent water on the internet.
03:03But milky seas are a slightly different phenomenon.
03:07The sea glows white as if it's illuminated by a bright spotlight, and the area of white water can extend for miles.
03:16Unlike bioluminescence, milky seas are a rarer and quite elusive phenomenon,
03:21which is why it was so difficult for scientists to determine its nature.
03:26People didn't come across such glowing waters very often, so many regarded it as legends about mermaids or sea monsters.
03:34But in 1985, science got a chance to study this thing in more detail.
03:40That year, a U.S. Navy research vessel got into the milky sea while sailing near the Arabian Peninsula.
03:47There were scientists on board who collected some samples of milky water and conducted a laboratory analysis.
03:55And that's what they found out.
03:57The water contained bioluminescent bacteria, but what caused them to glow?
04:02Scientists suggested that algae colonies first rose to the water's surface.
04:06They began to bloom and gradually decompose.
04:09Those cells of rotten algae burst and release special substances, lipids.
04:16A huge number of bacteria began to feed on lipids and multiply rapidly.
04:22The number of bacteria grew in such large numbers that they began to produce a continuous white glow.
04:28But where exactly and under what conditions could these milky seas appear?
04:35It was necessary to know not only for scientists, but also for authorities.
04:40Such a bright spot in the water could reveal the outlines of a submarine and turn it into an easy target for enemies.
04:47So, scientists continued their research.
04:50One of them was atmospheric scientist Stephen Miller.
04:55He started studying milky seas in the early 2000s and made a breakthrough in his research.
05:01To begin with, he decided to find out if the sensors on space satellites were capable of seeing bioluminescence.
05:09Miller started looking for any mention of extensive milky spots on the internet.
05:13He came across the Frontier Science Portal, where people wrote about strange and unexplained phenomenon around the world.
05:22There, he found a report from the British merchant ship SS Lima, which hit the Milky Sea in January 1995 while sailing along the Horn of Africa.
05:32This is how the log entry described the event.
05:36The bioluminescence appeared to cover the entire sea area from horizon to horizon.
05:41And it appeared as though the ship was sailing over a field of snow or gliding over the clouds.
05:48After that, Miller collected the images taken by certain satellites over the place where the SS Lima sailed at that time.
05:56At first, he didn't notice anything strange.
06:00But later, he realized that he was looking directly at the Milky Sea.
06:05The area of the glowing spot was so large that he had to scale the image down.
06:10That's when he saw a spot that looked like a comma.
06:15The edges of this spot coincided with the place where the crew of the SS Lima saw the white glow.
06:21Miller studied the images of this area taken before, during, and after the encounter,
06:27and found out that the Milky Sea rotated counterclockwise to the local ocean currents.
06:33But most importantly, Miller now knew that the White Sea could be seen from satellites.
06:40In 2011, two satellites with more sensitive sensors, capable of seeing in poor light, entered Earth's orbit.
06:47They helped Miller and other scientists to find out that milky seas appeared most often in the winter and summer
06:54in the northwestern Indian Ocean and around Indonesia.
06:58Great! Now Miller had the place and time to work with.
07:03He analyzed satellite data for the period from 2012 to 2021 and found out that one of the largest Milky Sea incidents occurred in 2019.
07:14For 45 nights, a white glow covered 40,000 square meters, which is the approximate area of Kentucky.
07:21But even after all these studies, scientists haven't managed to find the exact cause of the white glow.
07:29In addition to the idea about the disintegration of algae,
07:33researchers have put forward a theory that the glow may be caused by quorum sensing.
07:39This is the ability of bacteria to communicate using chemical signals that produce light.
07:46Okay, let's say there's some truth to this.
07:49But why are they doing this?
07:50To find out, let's look at classical blue bioluminescence in other organisms.
07:57Some biologists suggest that with the help of the glow, bacteria attract partners for reproduction.
08:04Another theory claims that the bright light works as an alarm when dangerous enemies appear in the sea.
08:11For example, a colony of phytoplankton meets hungry fish.
08:15The organisms turn their glow on to attract larger fish.
08:19It's like using evil to fight another evil.
08:22There are many theories, but what's the problem with figuring out the exact reason?
08:28Even with all the satellite help and studies of milky seas, it's quite difficult to get to the right place at the right time.
08:36Let's say a white glow the size of a football field appears in the sea.
08:42The satellites notice this and send a signal to the research center.
08:46Next, a team of scientists boards a vessel and goes directly to the place.
08:51The distance to the milky sea can be quite big.
08:54And by the time they arrive, the glow has already disappeared.
08:59In an ideal situation, scientists need to be around the area before, during, and after the glow to get the full picture.
09:07Unfortunately, this is not possible at the moment.
09:10That's it for today.
09:12So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:17Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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