Hundreds of tiny star-like bioluminescent phytoplankton shining brightly near the shore was captured in a breathtaking photo.
Photographer Pooyan Shadpoor took a mind-blowing shot of the seaside in Iran with Bioluminescent plankton spread along the shore of the waters. The photo is called "Bioluminous Larak" shared as the "Photo of the Day" on July 27 for National Geographic's Your Shot.
The caption says that Your Shot member Shadpoor came across the luminous scene while walking along the shore of Larak, Iran — an island in the Persian Gulf.
The “magical lights of [the] plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot,” he wrote according to National Geographic.
Plankton that can glow in the dark are considered "bioluminous" and could give off a blue, green, red or orange glow. Bioluminescence comes from “bio,” meaning life, and “lumin,” meaning light.
Bioluminescent plankton don’t glow all of the time since it takes energy to create the chemicals that allow them to glow, Ask the Biologist reported.
