14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday, NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States) released this cool photo showing swirls of sea ice floating about in the ocean, as seen from space.
The photo was taken earlier this month, i.e. on April 14, by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, and NASA tells us that the sea ice featured in it is busy riding the East Sakhalin Current.
“The current is marked by the narrow corridor of dense ice that hugs the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island. As it approaches Hokkaido, the ice patterns show a series of eddies and swirls,” the Administration explains.
“The East Sakhalin Current wanes in summer when the Soya Current begins to enter the Sea of Okhotsk. This inrush of summer water starts in April and probably expresses itself in this image as ice pattern to the east above Hokkaido,” it adds.
Scientists say that thanks to this picture, which shows about 1,000 kilometers (roughly 600 miles) of the East Sakhalin Current, it is possible to document ocean movements that would otherwise only be observable in sunlight.
In case anyone was wondering, word has it that the atmospheric haze noticeable in this April 14 is industrial smog originating from either China or Japan.