Vaadhoo (Raa Atoll)

For other islands, see Vaadhoo (disambiguation).

Vaadhoo
Inhabited island
Vaadhoo Location in Maldives
Coordinates:
Country	Maldives
Administrative atoll	Northern Maalhosmadulu Atoll
Distance to Malé	194.36 km (120.77 mi)
Dimensions
• Length	1.450 km (0.901 mi)
• Width	0.400 km (0.249 mi)
Population
• Total	550
Time zone	MST (UTC+05:00)

Vaadhoo (Dhivehi: ވާދޫ) is one of the inhabited islands of Raa Atoll, Maldives.

Total population of island was more than 500 in 2007.

Sea of Stars on Vaadhoo Island

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.

Bioluminescence Phytoplankton

The bioluminescence phytoplankton can be seen during night time all around the sea shore. It will appear blue glowing like sparkles of crystals or glow likes a fireflies swimming in the ocean. But what is the causes of these magical effects during night time? It was found by scientist that these natural phenome comes from a tiny organism called dinoflagellates.

The tiny flashes where they produce light is called luciferin, which they use their own chemical to emit the light. The purpose of the tiny flashes light disorientate and also surprise the predator; to protect themselves and avoid them. This type of light emits cold light which is less than 20% that generates heat. They glow when they move because of stress, so when you just dip in your hands with some motions it will cause a vibrations for them to generate the light. Since bioluminescent plankton generates lights from their own energy to create chemicals, they don’t glow for the whole day or a long time of period

2 Types of organisms

So why is it only blue lights in the ocean? It was based on their appearance depending on their habitants. There are two types of organism, one is from the marines and one is from the land organism. Most of the marine organism express blue-green part of the visible light spectrum in themselves. Since they are sensitive with this color, it also make them easily to be seen crystal clearly in the ocean especially in the night time. In another word, some of the land organism produce more than one colors. The examples of these land organism are fireflies which emits yellow spectrum and a railroad worm which actually glow more than one lights. Some organism are able to emit light continuously but some had to use their own organs to glow and sometimes it only last about 10 seconds and the flashes occur in specific spot such as illuminate from the entire body.

Location

The best period to see these amazing and stunning view of sparkle glows is during on summer through winter. Countries that can be able to see is in Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. To capture the captivating view is in San Diego which you can experience night surfing through the waves with thousands of plankton to glow brightly as you break into the waves.

External links

• Ministry of Atoll Development
• "bioluminescence" Retrieved 2016-03-26
• "Bioluminescent Plankton: What makes it glow?" Retrieved 2016-03-26
• "Bioluminescent Plankton" Retrieved 2016-03-26