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Northwest Atlantic Ocean

The Gulf Stream flows away from North America under cloud cover in this VIIRS composite collected by two different satellites (Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20) on May 7, 2019. Just northwest of the Gulf Stream where the water is cooler, the cloud cover disappears revealing many eddies painted by the rapidly multiplying phytoplankton they contain. Still farther north — just shy of the horizon in this composite — other photosynthesizing protists turn the water green off western Greenland.

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