Icy Ocean Current Seen from Space

sea ice swilrs near Japan — Sea ice travels south on the East Sakhalin Current in this astronaut photo taken April 14, 2014.

(Image credit: Courtesy ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 39 crew.)

Swirls of sea ice mark major ocean currents near Japan in a new photograph taken from space.

The new space picture shows the Sea of Okhotsk in the upper right, and the Japanese island of Hokkaido in the lower left. Between the two is a brilliant line of sea ice heading south. The Kuril Islands are also visible off the coast of Hokkaido.

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This astronaut photo was taken from the International Space Station on April 14. It's not the first time NASA has turned ocean currents into Earth science art. In 2012, the space agency released a dreamy video of ocean currents across the globe over two-and-a-half years. The animation, based on a computer simulation of ocean currents, shows major currents such as the Gulf Stream along the eastern United States, as well as smaller eddies driven by the Earth's rotation.

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.