ABOVE: Part of a colorized satellite image showing a milky sea (blue) off the coast of Java (urban areas illuminated) on August 2, 2019
COURTESY OF STEVEN MILLER
Rounding the southern tip of South America on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin stumbled onto a rare and astonishing natural phenomenon. “While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle,” he wrote in his account of the 1830s voyage. “There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the surface, which during the day is seen as foam, now glowed with a pale light. . . . As far as the eye reached, the crest of every wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon, from the reflected glare of these livid flames, was not so utterly obscure as over the vault of the heavens.” He had sailed through ...
