The story behind the photo: Grand Prismatic Spring is
very huge, very colorful, but on this day was barely visible. Still,
this incredible color shown through anyhow. Although it is one of
the largest thermal pools in the world, it is hardly alone. It rests
among other thermal features and is right next to one of the most massive
geysers in the world, Excelsior Geyser, which has in its rare eruptions
a very high volume of eruption. This spring, however, is merely a
curious wonder, whose colors are formed by algae. NASA using the
Hubble space telescope ran a comparison story between the Grand Prismatic
Spring and the strangely similar colors and shape of the Ring Nebula.
They used my site as a reference (although I did not provide the actual
image). In any event, NASA argued that there was a loose parallel
between the two features corresponding to differences in temperature accounting
for difference in colors. What amazes me, however, is that these
colors are not caused by the light hitting the water but by different colors
of algae living at different temperatures. Loree and I are not particularly
happy with this picture, but this spring is very difficult to take an effective
picture of without being airborn. It is too large to take a good
picture from the boardwalk.
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