photo: Shimmering Blue Shoreline of Vaadhoo Island (Google)

Have the stars come down on shore?

Is it real or a fantasy land?

We can really swim in a sea of stars…a magical surprise in the Vaadhoo island, one of the islands of Raa Atoll in the Maldives, similarly, on the islands of Mudhdhoo and Rangali, Lakshadweep Islands in India, Mosquito Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and on the coast of Leucadia in California!

photo: Vaadhoo island, one of the inhabited islands of Raa Atoll in the Maldives, a tropical nation in the Indian Ocean composed of 26 ring-shaped atolls, which are made up of more than 1,000 coral islands. (Google).

The above photo, (daily telegraph.com.au), by Jervis Bay Australia, local Joanne Paquette has attracted the attention of one of the world’s most respected science and nature societies in the world.

As night falls on certain beaches around the world, the waves glow with an eerie blue light, neon dots that make it look as though stars are washing up the beach.

In Mexico there are beaches and lagoons that feature the natural “magic” phenomena known as bioluminescence, which are flashes of thousands of microorganisms (photo:theycatantimes.com)

It’s the microscopic organism called noctiluca and it is also known as the sea sparkle .It is one of the marvels of the ocean, the glowing is due bioluminescence, which takes place when the water is disturbed by oxygen.

photo: Puerto Rico (Google). Bioluminescent bays exist very few in the world, in Puerto Rico, there are three.

As the phytoplankton float, movement in the water sends electrical impulses around a proton-filled compartment inside them; electrical pulses open the voltage-sensitive proton ion channels into scintillons (the flashing unit inside them.) The pH in the cytoplasm changes, creating a series of chemical reactions, which activate a protein called luciferase. When luciferase is mixed with oxygen, the neon blue light is created.

The “sea of stars“, is actually consisted by millions of microscopic organisms called bioluminescent phytoplankton.

Some of the most spectacular photographs have been captured from one location, Vaadhoo island, (a tiny island with just over 500 inhabitants), Maldives, which has been nick named the sea of stars.

photo: San Diego beach (Google).

Vaadhoo island is famous for the ‘sea of stars.’ This marine bioluminescence is generated by phytoplankton known as dinoflagellates. Woodland Hastings of Harvard University has for the first time identified a special channel in the dinoflagellate cell membrane that responds to electrical signals—offering a potential mechanism for how the algae create their unique illumination.