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    imageMagical Urbanism, a website about urbanization, design and social change, is maintained by Mike Ernst. I'm an urban planner and designer based in New York City. I graduated from the Masters of City Planning program at UC Berkeley.

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    Van Gogh from Space

    This striking image looks like a painting; it’s actually natural formations in an aerial image, showing massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirling around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea.

    Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Population explosions, or blooms, of phytoplankton, like the one shown here, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters, fueling the growth and reproduction of these tiny plants.

    Photo credit: USGS/NASA/Landsat 7
    Learn more about the Landsat satellite here.


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    One Response to “Van Gogh from Space”

    1. FACE says:
      June 2, 2011 at 11:42 pm

      Trippy…

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