Ocean plants color the water of the Great Australian Bight off the shore of Victoria, Australia, in this photo-like Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image, taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on January 11, 2007.
Iridescent shades of peacock blue and emerald green decorated the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina on December 24, 2007. Though hundreds of kilometers in length, these bright bands of color were formed by miniscule objects—tiny surface-dwelling ocean plants known as phytoplankton.