Image of the Day: Bioluminescent Seas Under a Starry Night

This incredible shot, by photographer Phil Hart, uses a long exposure (an hour and a half) to capture the rotation of the stars and the glow from bioluminescent algae at Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia.

On his website, Hart has a gallery of similarly gorgeous images documenting the glowing blue Noctiluca scintillans algae, which have colonized the Gippsland Lakes ecosystem as an unexpected consequence of catastrophic wildfires in the region in 2006. Visit his website for a full explanation of the multi-year chain of environmental events that led to this night-time light show, as well as for more stunning images.

---

Photo by Phil Hart; story via Popular Science.