AROUND 100 miles of water in the North Sea off the coast of Shetland has transformed into a green colour, pictures from space have shown.
Nasa’s Earth Observatory published the photo of the ocean with a burst of green colour in the middle, and the Fair Isle is visible at the top left corner, earlier this month.
According to the American space agency, a large algae bloom, phytoplankton, amassed in the waters near Scotland’s Shetland Islands.
Scientists added that despite their microscopic size, the plant-like organisms can become visible in satellite images when they explode in numbers, forming what is known as a phytoplankton “bloom.”
The bloom likely contains coccolithophores as well, notably Gephrocapsa Huxleyi, which is armoured with plates of highly reflective calcium carbonate, researchers added.
However, scientists will need water samples to confirm the types of phytoplankton present.
Nasa said such blooms do commonly occur in the northern North Sea, but on rarer occasions, they can turn up in Scottish coastal waters.
The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 captured this image on June 13, 2025, and the part of the bloom shown in the picture spanned a width of around 160 kilometres (100 miles).
