NASA Spots Plankton Swarms from Space to Help Save North Atlantic Right Whales
North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) are one of the Earth’s most critically endangered mammals. While commercial whaling is no longer a threat to them, accidental entanglement in fishing gears and vessel strikes account for a lot of NARW deaths. Researchers have been tracking their movements to prevent these by mapping their primary food source, a reddish planktonic copepod named Calanus Finmarchicus. Using NASA satellite data, they found a way to detect Calanus swarms at the ocean surface in the Gulf of Maine, picking up on the animals’ natural red pigment. This new approach may help to understand the migration pattern of the NARW based on those copepod gatherings.
Understanding the patterns
According to a new study, this approach uses data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The MODIS instrument reads how the spectrum of sunlight reflected from the ocean surface changes in response to what’s in the water.
Astaxanthin, the reddish pigment of the copepods, alters the absorption or scattering of photons in the ocean, affecting the mix of living and non-living matter, allowing MODIS to detect colour changes when a large number of zooplanktons rise to the surface.
Researchers tested a satellite-based copepod detection technique in Norwegian seas a few years ago. The Gulf of Maine, a vital feeding place for right whales during their northern journey, is now the subject of some of the same scientists’ improved methodology. They could estimate the number of microscopic organisms and create improved photos that showed Calanus swarms at the sea surface by integrating satellite data, a model, and field observations.
Future of ocean observation
The efficiency of MODIS is limited because it only detects the red pigment of the copepods rather than the organism itself. It leaves the chance of false detections of other small reddish animals. Cloud cover, rough seas, or deeper swarms limit what satellites can spot.
NASA’s next-generation PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite — launched in 2024 — is poised to improve the detection of zooplankton and phytoplankton dramatically.
The PACE mission utilizes the Ocean Colour Instrument, detecting over 280 wavelengths of light, providing better insights into ocean colour and plankton types.
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Asteroid Vesta, long considered a stalled protoplanet, may actually be a massive fragment of a larger world that once existed in our solar system. New findings based on gravity-field mapping and spin-rate data suggest Vesta lacks the dense core typically found in differentiated planetary bodies. The discovery challenges previous assumptions, drawn from NASA’s Dawn mission in 2012, that classified Vesta as an embryonic planet. Now, scientists report that Vesta might have been ejected from a differentiated world in a massive collision 4.5 billion years ago, upending ideas about the development of planets and asteroids.
New Gravity Data Suggests Vesta Is Debris from a Destroyed Planet, Not a Protoplanet
As per a new study published in Nature Astronomy on April 23, 2025, Vesta does not quite match the former model. Refined calibration methods polished the radio Doppler signals, confirming the absence of a metal-rich core, which was inconsistent with earlier work. Seth Jacobson of Michigan State University, who led the research, stated the new interpretation marks a major shift in planetary science. While Vesta’s basaltic, volcanic surface still indicates geological activity, its internal uniformity contradicts the expectations of a body that once underwent full differentiation.
This paradox has caused scientists to reconsider the asteroid’s heritage. One scenario is that Vesta started to differentiate but never got very far. But data from meteorites called howardite-eucrite-diogenites (HEDs), thought to have come from Vesta, show no signs of such incomplete differentiation. Jacobson and his team instead favour the explanation that Vesta was formed from material blasted off a fully developed planet during an ancient planetary collision, which could also illustrate its volcanic surface without requiring it to have a dense core.
The results not only question Vesta’s identity but also suggest a possibility of a more general theory: that other asteroids could also be pieces of shattered planets. NASA’s Psyche and ESA’s Hera missions, planned for the next decades, intend to do such gravity investigations, which could ultimately confirm this new view. Jacobson noted that Vesta’s composition could even hint at a shared origin with Earth or other early planets, a hypothesis that may reshape asteroid science entirely.
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