What has caused the snow to shine? Scientists have discovered that these are tiny bioluminescent animals called copepods.
After crushing a snowball and noticing its brightness increasing with pressure, they decided this nature display needed to be caught on camera. They took photos of the strange glow they saw in the snowbanks and shared them on Facebook, where they sparked a lot of interest in the beautiful but unusual phenomenon. It turns out that there are also glowing plankton under the snow.
This is the first documented sighting of this type of bioluminescent beings in the Arctic.
Copepods, also known as sea bugs, are a few millimeters long. They are estimated to make up most of the biomass in the ocean and are passive swimmers. They live in both freshwater and saltwater habitats and contribute very effectively to oceanic food chains. Copepods typically live 80 to 300 feet below the ocean surface during the day and rise a few feet above the surface at night.
How can they shine?
Thanks to a chemical reaction that produces the light-emitting substrate coelenterazine . It is their way of protecting themselves from predators (although it is not always useful).
