It was a cold December night in the Russian Arctic. A named Vera Emelianenko went on a walk. She noticed her footprints were glowing. Emelianenko bent down to make a snowball. She squeezed it. And the snow glowed brighter! She called on photographer Alexander Semenov to take photos of the lights.
“It was amazing to discover such a beautiful ,” Semenov said. But what was making the snow glow? “The explanation turned out to be simple,” Semenov said.
Scientists found that the snow lit up due to bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is when a creature makes its own light. For example, fireflies do this!
Of course, snow isn’t an animal. But there were tiny animals called copepods inside the snow! Emelianenko found the little critters under a microscope. When she poked the copepods, they lit up blue!
Copepods live in the ocean. So, it was strange to find them on the ground. Scientists think the nearby White Sea swept the copepods ashore. Then, the animals got trapped.
This is the first time scientists have documented a sight like this. Emelianenko and her team made history!
Would you want to see the snow glow?
Updated January 17, 2022, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Alexa Tirapelli
