The Goldilocks zone typically refers to the habitable area around a star where conditions are right for the existence of liquid water and possibly life. But on Earth, the South Atlantic Ocean has its own kind of Goldilocks zone. In spring and summer, conditions in the Argentine Sea off Patagonia often become just right for phytoplankton, and populations of the plant-like organisms explode into enormous blooms.
In late 2020, satellite images started to show the colorful signature of phytoplankton blooms off the coast of Argentina and around the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas). Vivid greens and blues still swirled in the sea on January 5, 2021, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image (above).
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired the image below on January 2, 2021. It shows a detailed view of phytoplankton in Grande Bay, off of Argentina’s Santa Cruz province. Part of the Santa Cruz River is visible at the top-left.
