North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) are one of the Earth’s most critically endangered mammals. While commercial whaling is no longer a threat to them, accidental entanglement in fishing gears and vessel strikes account for a lot of NARW deaths. Researchers have been tracking their movements to prevent these by mapping their primary food source, a reddish planktonic copepod named Calanus Finmarchicus. Using NASA satellite data, they found a way to detect Calanus swarms at the ocean surface in the Gulf of Maine, picking up on the animals’ natural red pigment. This new approach may help to understand the migration pattern of the NARW based on those copepod gatherings. Understanding the patterns According to a new study, this approach uses data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The MODIS instrument reads how the spectrum of sunlight reflected from the ocean surface changes in response to what’s in the water. Astaxanthin, the reddish pigment of the copepods, alters the absorption or scattering of photons in the ocean, affecting the mix of living …